The Eye of Osiris
by Blay130
Summary: Kaiba's intrusion into the afterlife is met with unintended repercussions as his final duel with Atem attempts to force both the hand of fate and the Pharaoh. Bound together as allies in the aftermath, the pair have a chance to finally settle old scores while a foe from beyond the grave conspires to return to the living world in Kaiba's place. Post-DSoD. Prideshipping. Slow burn.
1. Chapter 1 - Prologue

**AN:** This story set to begin as _Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions_ ends. The characters are based on the versions from the English dub of the anime but will also use some events from the manga as well; primarily that like in the manga Kaiba wasn't around for the Ceremonial Duel or Ancient Egyptian arc.

* * *

**Prologue: Days prior to Kaiba's departure to the afterlife.**

**Roland**

The helicopter touched down smoothly and Mr. Kaiba disembarked without a look back or a word of instruction.

I paused out of habit, leaving a space between my employer and I which would normally be filled by Mokuba Kaiba's swift pursuit of his brother. Habits are certainly hard to break. It hadn't escaped my notice that Mr. Kaiba had chosen a time when he knew his younger brother would be unavailable in which to respond to the written invitation of Pegasus. I wondered how it was that such an innocuous scheduling conflict could seem so suspicious.

"Reckon it'll be a long wait?" The pilot called back to me, watching as our boss was deemed out of earshot. He was a new hire, no one else would have needed to ask the question knowing just how much Mr. Kaiba disliked this place and its owner. I glanced up at the familiar castle that crowned the island on which Pegasus had hosted his Duelist Kingdom. "I doubt it." I replied.

I straightened my necktie and exited the helicopter quickly in the hope of closing the gap created by my pause.

Pegasus was a strange entity for any security personnel to be briefed on - both a corporate rival and business partner at any given time and happy to discard one role for the other at a moments notice. Despite appearances, the man was nothing to disregard. Both his weaponized-eccentricity and previous attempt to seize control of Kaiba Corporation was a case-study assigned to all who applied for seniority within the company's security force.

Mr. Kaiba had nearly arrived at the top of the looming stone staircase that preceded the castle's front door and I took two-steps at a time to catch up to him. He paused as he reached the top, raising his head to stare at some far off section of the castle's battlement. It was hard to tell if he was ignoring me, giving me a chance to catch up, or both.

I reached the five meter minimum distance behind him which was the policy of the company. He didn't stop staring at the section of castle wall but close as I was now I noted his eyes held a certain emptiness. It was a strange, contemplative expression that I wasn't used to. On the face of any other young man it may have looked liked longing.

My delay had not gone unnoticed. His gaze hardened abruptly and he shot a blistering glare at me over his shoulder. I was glad for my sunglasses. Mr. Kaiba's agitation was made evident by his dark expression and overly-irritable mood.

The castle door opened in a single solid motion to break Mr. Kaiba's attention. Pegasus's man greeted us with a brisk formality and waved us into the foyer. He was an older man than I, gaunt in the face but with eyes equally hidden by sunglasses. Croquet, I believe. I wondered if I would still be performing my duties at the side of my employer when I was his age, as surely as he still performed his duties for Pegasus?

It was hard to know. I watched as Mr. Kaiba waved off the man and paced impatiently around the foyer like a tiger caged in a zoo.

The Kaiba brothers had youth on their side and if it was to be my choice I would certainly continue in my position though my family expressed disbelief in the appeal of working for a teenage boss, let alone a billionaire with such a history of questionable decisions... and those were only the ones the public was permitted to know of.

I turned my attention to Croquet, searching his careful composure for any clue to the nature of this invitation. I wished for a code between men in our position; some sort of honor system to the likes of 'if your employer is about to attempt to murder, kidnap or hypnotize my employer, please give me a nod of warning so I may respond to the best of my abilities and I will return the favor'. Of course no such system existed... Or perhaps our respective employers were too unpredictable and would make any such agreement moot.

From the stair case above us the familiar voice of Pegasus rang out like a bell with a long peel of "Kaiba-boooooooooooy~."

Mr. Kaiba's pacing stopped and he turned on his heel to level his glare at Pegasus on the landing above him.

"Pegasus." He snarled - not bothering to sheath his raw irritation at the older man's address. Mr. Kaiba snatched the envelop containing the hand-written letter of invitation from his coat pocket and threw it to the floor to grind beneath his boot. I wonder if he had brought it all the way here for just that purpose. "Don't think you can summon me all the way over here to your little fantasy-land whenever you feel like it! Next time try picking up a phone." He spat.

Pegasus's eye watched the letter with a coy grin as it was shredded beneath Mr. Kaiba's foot and then sighed with exaggeration. "How very theatrical you are, Kaiba boy."

Mr. Kaiba grunted in response and stilled immediately.

Waving to the staircase with a sweep of his hand Pegasus continued without pause. "I have very humbly requested your presence because I have something to show you that you may just find ever so interesting. Please, won't you join me upstairs?" he drawled.

Mr. Kaiba's eyes narrowed. After a speculative pause he ascended the staircase and both I and Croquet followed at a small distance behind.

With another wave of his frilly sleeves Pegasus ushered Mr. Kaiba and myself into a large conference room. A long and elaborately carved wooden table spun the length of the space with eight chairs on either side of its polished mahogany expanse and a projector and screen set up at the end. A crystal ashtray was placed in the middle. Pegasus was keeping a close eye on Mr. Kaiba, it seemed.

I took my place beside the door we had just entered through. Mr. Kaiba took several stiff paces into the room like a wary tomcat.

Pegasus apparently expected this, the older man leisurely settling into a nearby chair and watching with a look of amusement as Mr. Kaiba's eyes jumped from one detail to the next until he had made a full scan of the conference room and catalogued it to his liking. He glared at Pegasus's open expression of mirth and yanked out the chair nearest to him from under the table, seating himself with one empty chair between he and Pegasus.

Pegasus broke the silence before it could settle in. "I hear sales of the new Duel Disk are projected to exceed expectations," he cooed cheerily; smart to begin with a compliment. Mr. Kaiba wasn't immune to flattery, though he didn't like it.

Mr. Kaiba grunted. "You heard that right. Pre-orders opened yesterday and the numbers are already above initial projections."

"Amazing Kaiba-boy, how do you do it?" Pegasus mocked gleefully "Especially given all that disintegrating business at your little exhibition with Yugi-boy" he added, his single eye narrowing like a predator sizing up its prey.

Mr. Kaiba scoffed, determined to ignore the little jab. "Everyone in that stadium came for a show, and they got it. But I doubt you called me here just to talk shop." he crossed his arms and his legs, closing off the topic. "Now unlike you, I actually run my business so my time is worth something." He paused, a hand jabbing toward the blank projector screen. "Whatever this is, just get on with it so you can stop wasting my day."

Pegasus chuckled, slowly blinking as his lazy grin continued. "No time for banter? Such a shame. It feels like I see less and less of you since the Pharaoh departed. Such a pity he returned only for you to miss seeing him once more." He shrugged, the gesture overly large like an actor in a pantomime. I imagine that even with only one eye Pegasus couldn't have missed the way Mr. Kaiba's shoulders twitched and his hand curled into a fist at the mention of 'the Pharaoh'. I could see it from across the room. He continued with an unchanged tone "Well then I suppose we best get straight to business."

He leaned on his chair armrest and waved his wrist around in a small circular motion which was apparently a sign for Croquet to spring into action.

The older man evenly surged forward with a small silver tray carrying a single projector remote. Pegasus picked up the remote and spun the wand in his hand a few times as Croquet moved back to his previous position at Pegasus's side, before leveling the device at the projector at the end of the room. The apparatus whirred to life and the screen at the end of the room filled with images of an abandoned archaeological dig in Egypt. The one Mr. Kaiba had been funding until only a few days ago.

Mr. Kaiba sat forward in his chair, leaning his elbows on the table and meshing his fingers together. For the first time since their meeting had begun the grin slipped from Pegasus's face and he turned to fix Mr. Kaiba with a somber stare.

"I know what it is that your little team was looking for over there. I suppose with the Millennium Puzzle now gone that you're already working on another way to get to the Pharaoh?"

To his credit, Mr. Kaiba turned his eyes to meet Pegasus's gaze straight on without a word of denial. Since recovering the Cube from his duel against Diva, Mr. Kaiba had declared himself incommunicado to the majority of his staff and sequestered himself in the lab he used for rapid prototyping. The result had been the design of something that looked somewhere between a missile and a rocket ship. He hadn't elaborated on its function, only handed off the plans to Fuguta and myself to disseminate among the appropriate KaibaCorp. departments for construction.

"And?" Mr. Kaiba prompted stoically.

Pegasus leaned back in his chair and sighed, truly sighed. "Kaiba-boy, I won't bother to tell you that whatever it is your cooking up in that clever brain of yours is a bad idea, because that would make me a hypocrite."

Mr. Kaiba's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Pegasus's tone took on a wistful note and his eye stared at the nothingness in the corner of the room for a long moment. "When I was about your age I lost someone. She was just too dear and gentle for this world. A little masterpiece..." He trailed off and opened his mouth to continue before Mr. Kaiba abruptly interrupted him.

"- So you dragged your ass to Egypt, learned about some ancient magical bullshit and went tomb-diving. When bringing the dead back to life didn't work out then you instead created Duel Monsters from the tablets you found." Mr. Kaiba smirked at Pegasus as the older man's expression warped slightly into a faint frown.

"Accurate, in a way" Pegasus agreed and shrugged. "Though I find your ability to gloss over all the most salient details rather telling, Kaiba-boy."

"Well here's where we're different" Mr. Kaiba continued as if Pegasus hadn't spoken, the volume of his voice increasing and raising a finger as he did so. "First: I don't care about bringing him back to life, I just need him in front of me long enough to beat him in a duel."

The was no doubt who this 'him' being spoken of was.

Mr. Kaiba's fist clenched tightly even as he raised a second finger to drive his point home. "Second: I'm not going to rely on some ancient Egyptian mysticism or dead religion to get what I want. I have tech for that."

He raised a third finger and his smirk worsened to look unpleasant" and last but not least if this little heart-to-heart in any indicator, you need a hell of a wake-up call because you're not me. So sit here and keep moping over your dead wife or whatever, Pegasus, because I'm not done yet."

Pegasus sat very still for a long moment, the force of Mr. Kaiba's words seeming to reverberate in the room with some unseen energy. I watched from the doorway as the older man's single eye studied Mr. Kaiba's face, looking for something I couldn't see. His lips curled into another grin and this one seemed triumphant, as though he had heard exactly what he had been hoping to.

Abruptly, he breezily agreed. "Very well then." He twirled the projector remote in his hand again and pressed the button for the next slide.

A dim photograph of a dark tomb flooded with water and light from an unseen entrance behind the photographer made a stark image on the projector screen.

Mr. Kaiba settled back against his chair, rolling his eyes at the new slide.

"As a man who - as you rightly pointed out - has made his living turning tablets from ancient tombs into trading cards, I tend to keep abreast of recent discoveries in Egypt." Pegasus purred, his cat-like grin returning to reassert itself and the drawling tones that accompanied it matching suit. "You can thank climate change for the deluge of rain that Egypt received a few weeks ago; it flooded the Nile and shifted the Delta just enough to reveal this tomb to the world." His finger flicked the remote again, a second slide of the water-logged tomb following the first, the features of the interior barely visible in the gloom. Mr. Kaiba stabbed his elbow into the arm rest of the chair and leaned on his hand in what I would have called the very picture of boredom. "Ironically, the water managed the almost unheard of feat of keeping out all tomb robbers but the damp has caused the wooden artifacts and papyrus to perish." Mr. Kaiba grunted, unimpressed. "Such a pity... Because they might have given a little more context for this -" Pegasus pronounced with his hair swishing as he did so.

The photographed stone tablet looked familiar, but not quite.

I had once taken my little nephew and niece to the Domino City museum. It was an Egyptian exhibit that they had been excited to see. I could recall them while they had pulled faces at the mummies and gasped at the golden jewelry on display, however it was a large stone tablet that had stopped me short. It hadn't been the material, nor the skillful workmanship that had set my teeth on edge, but the uncanny resemblance that the two opposing figures had to Mr. Kaiba and Yugi Muto.

At the time I dismissed it as an unsettling coincidence but if this career had taught me anything it was that someone needed to be watching these young men more closely. Looking upon the newly revealed tablet in the photograph elicited a similarly eerie feeling.

Though it had clearly cracked and represented only a portion of the full work, it was obvious the original stone must have easily been taller than myself and Mr. Kaiba.

Much like the so called 'Tablet of Lost Memories' the broken stone slab featured many figures, two once again resembling Mr. Kaiba and Mr. Muto and others appearing to be simplified renderings of the holographic creatures from the Duel Monsters card game. They stood facing each other, flanked on both sides by a field of reeds or some sort of corn that easily rivaled the height of my employer's carving. Barely visible against the damaged portion was a final shape, larger than each of the others as though giant in comparison as it loomed over the rest of the carved scene. Its elbows arched over the heads of Mr. Kaiba and Mr. Muto and its hands pulled together at its core, crossing over each other to hold what my cursory trip to the Domino City Museum informed me was a flail in one hand and a crook in the other, if I was remembering correctly. His wrappings had been left to contrast against the color of his head and hands, which had been painted in a green color that was mostly faded and largely chipped away. Around the figures were so many symbols it was hard to know where to look first.

Mr. Kaiba gritted his teeth and stood so quickly and with so much force that his chair fell over behind him. I attempted to meet his gaze - to silently question him for instructions, but his attention stayed fixed on the tablet.

No, 'fixed' wasn't the right word. He didn't stare at it to take it all in as you would a painting, but instead his eyes jumped from one hieroglyph to the next, rapidly roving over each symbol one at a time as though it were a real word and he was actually reading a sentence on a page. I found it odd, but that was normal. My employer was a deeply 'odd' young man.

"Translations aren't finished yet, of course, but at a glance I'd say the hieroglyphs are describing an incantation to return the dead to life. The figures depicted here are quite telling, don't you think Kaiba-boy?" Pegasus circled the arm of the figure that so closely resembled my employer with a laser pointer built into the projector remote. The red dot ran the outline of what looked strangely like Mr. Kaiba's newly released Duel Disk unit. The shape and detailing of it was uncanny. "Considering that your lovely new Duel Disks are an original creation of yours I'm rather sure that they weren't around in ancient Egypt to have their portraits carved." He cooed, toying with his long hair idly as he did so.

Mr. Kaiba gritted his teeth, then schooled his expression into a chilly sneer. "So what? First I'm being force-fed visions of the past and now I've been upgraded to depictions of the future?" He scoffed, loudly and smirked smugly. "I've already had someone try to sell me this before and I'm still not buying."

"Oh?" Pegasus questioned, his eyebrows rising in mock shock."Even though the tablet depicts the very goal you're striving for? Another duel with the Pharaoh? My goodness, you're so difficult to please."

Pegasus's finger rested on the button to move on to the next slide, softly tapping at it to draw attention to the motion without depressing the button. "And you're not at all curious about the other half of the tablet?" His voice and the gesture of his finger was coy and teasing.

Mr. Kaiba didn't like to be led. To try to goad his curiosity so blatantly... I could think of no way Pegasus could possibly have made Mr. Kaiba less inclined to view the next slide.

I judged this perfectly, and Mr. Kaiba turned to me for the first time since entering the castle with an irritable expression that told me without words that we were leaving. He kicked away the toppled chair that had fallen behind him for good measure and stalked toward the door as I opened it for him.

"Wait. Kaiba." Pegasus called, all buffoonery absent from his voice.

I didn't look back, keeping my focus on Mr. Kaiba as he paused in the door frame. He turned back into the room slightly. Pegasus must have taken that invitation to finish.

"Impressive as your technology is and doubtful about 'ancient Egyptian mysticism' as you are, the two needn't be mutually exclusive in serving your purpose." His tone was stern and melancholy as though giving a difficult piece of life advice.

Whatever his intention, a muscle jumped in Mr. Kaiba cheek and he grunted in acknowledgement. With a smooth flourish he pulled his phone from his coat pocket and held out the device to snap a photograph of the projector slide before sweeping out of the room.

I trailed him back to the helipad and spent the flight back to Kaiba Corporation keeping an eye on the pilot's flying while Mr. Kaiba sat awash in sullen silence, staring at the image on his phone.

**Mokuba**

The conference call ran long so I got in pretty late.

Though dealing with corporate was exhausting in a way it was great. I liked the added responsibility. I think Seto had deliberately been putting more and more duties onto me just slowly enough for me not to notice or get overwhelmed cos' compared to this time last year it really felt like I was making a difference in the company. Heck, I even had my own 'Green Initiative that I'd been working on to overhaul our manufacturing process to make it more eco-friendly and it was getting a lot of praise in the boardroom. I think Seto was putting off announcing it to the press though, just in case someone suggested getting rid of his Blue-Eyes jet in the spirit of further reducing emissions. We'd hold a press conference about it after the launch of the new Duel Disks was old news, and with all the Diva craziness that had gone down it was going to be a while before the hype died down.

If the last few days had taught me anything it was that the public had a weirdly high tolerance for strange things happening in Duel Monsters matches. When three quarters of a stadium just upright gets temporarily vaporized at the unveiling of a new product and then somehow the pre-orders sell out anyway, that's when you can tell you're doing something right. All it took was my big brother standing up on a stage and telling them he'd upgraded reality because life sucked and the rest of the advertising took care of itself.

Probably for the best that the Duel Disk was set up to be a hit right out of the gate because our marketing department had something else to be focusing on.

My big brother hated dealing with the marketing teams and I guess the feeling was mutual. The way he saw it, he did their job for them. Seto _was _marketing, so their whole job was to keep up with whatever crazy thing my brother was doing and find a way to sell it back to the public. Sometimes that was easy, but sometimes it really wasn't.

Like when he was building space stations and rocket ships.

The Head of Marketing in KaibaCorp USA was freaking out over this 'Dual Dimension System' Seto had invented and then pushed into production in like, a week. Less than a decade ago Kaiba Corporation was a weapons manufacturer and the idea of having a brand new KaibaCorp satellite hovering in space with rocket launching functionality was driving the American government crazy.

The USA branch had been chasing big brother about it for days so I'd offered to pick them up from him so he could focus on other stuff. He'd delegated the job to me in a heartbeat. Helping Seto out was great, but jeez...

After a three hour long con call in English I could see why he'd been ignoring them. They were really demanding. The American government was riding KC USA about what the space station was for and even the team in our Headquarters at Domino didn't fully know, so the issue got escalated higher and higher up the chain until it was us dealing with it.

I guess I understood all the suspicion, but it bugged me that people couldn't see how far we'd come - how completely in the past the previous Kaiba Corporation was.

Speaking of Americans...

I also knew he'd been to see Pegasus today. The two of them were business partners so it wasn't exactly weird that they met up, but I wondered why he felt the need to keep it so private. I was sort of glad though. Pegasus was creepy and Duelist Kingdom brought back nothing but bad memories. The guy had been buying up a lot of shares in KaibaCorp recently. I'd wondered if it was just to get my brother's attention, or for some other much worse reason.

We hadn't seen much of each other the last few weeks between me being at the dig site in Egypt and him being up in space and then going through one of his manic-inventor phases to turn production of this pod of his around, so I was betting he probably hadn't eaten or slept in a while. He could forget about stuff like that when he went into preparation mode.

I loosened my tie and padded through the house to the kitchen.

The cook had left a sandwich in the fridge and I felt like I could eat it, and then another of it, and then another of that one. Big brother said snacks after nine o'clock were bad for digestion, but I remember him eating like a horse when he was my age... And then acting really weird... And then barely eating anything at all.

I stared the sandwich down from its vantage point on the fridge's highest shelf.

He'd hit his first growth spurt when he was just a little bit older than me. It had felt like he'd doubled in height overnight, but I'd been so little at the time I guess that was just my kid-brain not really remembering time passing properly. I could remember him pretty much terrorizing the kitchen staff for months and then one day, suddenly, he'd just sort of stopped eating at all. No matter the dish, he'd just pick at it for a few minutes and then push it away.

Looking back, Gozaburo and him must have been playing one of their 'games'. I didn't really realize that then though. Hell, I'd even tried to smuggle food to him once and he'd stood there pale and shaky, telling me firmly that he wasn't mad, but that I was never to do it again. I'd hugged him tightly and cried into his shirt, not knowing why, only knowing that I could feel his bones under his clothing and he was looking so scrawny.

He'd never really gone back to eating like a normal person, even after Gozaburo died. The older I got, the more I wanted to ask him about these memories - to try and put them in a context that I could understand. I don't think my big brother was really capable of talking about them though.

I left the sandwich on the shelf. I wasn't that hungry. I'd had my three square meals and snuck in some baked goods between meetings. I'd be fine.

I guess instead it was time to see if I could get Seto to take a break from whatever it was he was doing. I wondered where he was. Lucky I never had trouble finding him.

A lot of people might have taken that for granted. He was taller than most other people and dressed in a way that magazines, tabloids and dumb people on the street called 'eccentric'. The idea that I might grow to be that tall too made me grin, though of course I'd never want to be taller than my big brother. Seto had earned being taller than everyone else.

It was less easy to take the trick for granted when you stopped to remember just how many rooms the mansion had, how many offices there were in KaibaCorp, or just how easily my brother could jump in his jet and fly off to another country... Or when the pod was fully finished, potentially another dimension.

I found him swimming laps in the outdoor pool; the long limbs I looked forward to not quite measuring up to in a few years slicing through the water like a knife. Dusk had settled into night and the stinging smell of the chlorine mixed with the scent of the flowers from the mansion's adjacent garden. The gardeners did good work! I liked the flowers, but I had no idea what kind they were. At least he was taking a break, sort of.

There was no way to catch his attention while his grueling front crawl kept most of his head underwater and he assaulted the pool like it owed him an overdue expense report. I shrugged.

One of his laptops was open on the patio table. I wandered over to it while he kept swimming and recognized the UI of the program it was running. It was the decryption software he'd run to translate the Egyptian symbols at the bottom of the Winged Dragon of Ra card back in Battle City. This time they were working on some low-resolution photograph of a stone tablet. The translation so far read sort of like a spell from a movie, but mentioning that would just upset him. I sighed, enjoying the quiet night.

It was weird. Everything was so peaceful. It felt like the calm before a storm.

I rolled up my pants, dabbling my feet in the water and idly fiddling with the semi-submerged pool thermometer. My big brother swam two more laps before he realized I was there and made his exit from the pool.

I grinned at him, leaping up to bounce into the deck chair next to the one he had left his towel on. I ignored the chair's creaky protest at the treatment. Seto crossed the space with a more subdued pace; panting slightly from his laps while having to comb his bangs out of his eyes with his fingers. When dry they were just long enough to sit neatly above his eyes, but when weighed down by water they messily flopped over them. And it was funny.

He really needed to sleep. I don't think he'd stopped moving for more than a few hours since the Pharaoh had been and gone at the duel with Diva. With his bangs temporarily swiped away there was no mistaking the deep ink-stained smudges beneath his eyes. They looked much worse now, much deeper and hollower with only the harsh pool lights to illuminate them. I don't know why he felt so pressed for time. If the afterlife really was a place that you could get to then it wasn't like it was going to go anywhere if he just took the night off. There wasn't much point in saying that though. There wasn't anything anyone on earth could do to distract him from a rematch with the Pharaoh.

I wished he could just let it go and let 'Atem' be part of the past but he couldn't. He'd tried for maybe a week right after the Pharaoh left and fallen into this listless funk. My brother didn't get depressed - he got pissed as hell or paranoid or obsessive, but never actually sad. It had been hard to see him that way. Deciding to dig up the Puzzle and yank Atem back here was a bad move, but making that plan had been the only thing to snap my brother out of it. I didn't get this rivalry thing those two had going on but if it was really that important to him there was no way I wasn't going to help, even if I didn't understand. Honestly, I don't think Seto really understood it either.

It was another one of the many things we didn't discuss; like why he sometimes decided not to sleep for days on end, like the food thing, or him wearing a wetsuit to go swimming in a heated pool. I contemplated him for a moment as he experimentally rolled his left shoulder and then took the towel from the sun lounger next to me. Fortunately my brother viewed his body like a high performance piece of machinery; something to be pushed to its limit but also entitled to attention and proper maintenance before it gave out completely.

"Good swim?" I chirped, grinning forcefully as he had to flick his bangs out of his eyes a second time and scowled slightly as they slapped back into their original position.

He grunted as he applied the towel to his hair. "The water temperature's off by point five of a degree, and the chlorine levels are a mess."

Yeah, they weren't. Well, I couldn't speak to the chlorine levels, but according to the thermometer the temperature was definitely right. The pool was fine. Suggesting to Seto that he might just be feeling a little more thin-skinned than usual wouldn't have gone down well.

"Well it's nice out." I continued breezily, pointing upward at the sky, "Let's watch the clouds for a bit."

Seto didn't like to be bossed around. Tone was very important and though I had stated it enthusiastically enough to be a suggestion, it lacked the upwards inflection of a request. I'd been very careful. Seto finished toweling his hair to glance at me, assessing my diplomatic use of verbiage with a slight smirk before slowly sitting and swinging his legs around to lie in earnest on the sun lounger next to mine.

Maybe it was just because I was getting older, but ever since I cut my hair Seto seemed to assess me more carefully when I offered a contrary opinion to his own. It didn't happen a lot; my big brother was a genius after all, but sometimes he missed really simple things... Like that maybe the idea of building a pod to shoot himself into heaven in wasn't a great idea. Sometimes the play didn't pay off and he'd curb stomp my opinion into the ground, but sometimes, when phrased the right way and asked at the right moment big brother would pause and really look at me and then do what I wanted with a smirk.

It was encouraging. It felt like winning.

Though the breeze was cool, the night was warm and I felt a smugness in the execution of my strategy. After only ten minutes of lounging beneath the stars I could hear Seto's breathing even out into sleep. I couldn't help but grin. Just because I knew my brother would get over his insomnia once the pod was made didn't mean I couldn't nudge him in the right direction.

I surveyed the clouds with an air of victory while making sure to quiet my own movements and breathing as much as possible. My big brother was an impossibly light sleeper. Natural sounds like the wind, or rustling of leaves or bird song had little effect, but human voices or the creak of a floorboard, or the opening of a door would wake him like an electric shock.

In the corner of my eye I saw him shiver slightly as the wind swam another one of its own laps around the pool; probably more chilling to someone still drying off. The conundrum of waking him or not solved itself as an alarm on Seto's phone drove the device to vibrate madly across the side table on the other side of my brother's lounger. Seto thrashed himself upright, his back ramrod straight in an instant and simultaneously smashed his fist against the phone's snooze button. The startled look in his eyes evaporated as though it had never been there.

Unlocking the device to turn off his swimming alarm, he glanced over to me. "I have some work to do." I frowned slightly, then schooled the expression off of my face and nodded. "Sure thing, big brother."

He snatched up his devices and went inside, leaving me beside the pool with his wet towel and a deep sense of dread.


	2. Chapter 2

**Atem**

Yugi had looked strong.

Clearly some time had passed since my departure and he wore his new maturity well. Finally the strength I'd always known his heart to hold was reflected to the whole world. I'd almost not needed to intercede at all; he had almost conquered Diva without my aid, yet his mind had search for mine across dimensions and mortality as he lingered on the edge of defeat and I would never deny our bond, nor would I deny a plea for help from my dear friend.

Though it'd become harder to breech in our time apart I was honored when Yugi consented to let me be privy to his most recent memories as our minds brushed against each other for the last time. Once more he permitted me to be his partner. There was no greater privilege. Through his eyes I came to understand Diva and his rise to power along with the events of the day encircling it.

Even while using his body as a host my link to the living world had been as thin as a thread. Speech proved beyond my power. I summoned Mahad to my side in silence and was pleased that Yugi had needed no words between us to know my mind in the aftermath. I wished I could tell him of all I was seeing and experiencing here in my afterlife but perhaps it was best that I had not. In its own way, that single silent moment of wordless reunion had been perfect.

I couldn't have wished for more.

The Millennium Puzzle bounced against my body as I rode across my lands. To have its weight back around my neck was welcome. I found myself smirking as the reeds and fields rushed passed. I should have known it would prove too tempting a target for Kaiba to leave alone. Removing it from the mortal world was best for everyone. In this world a month had passed without incident since the encounter and though seeing the puzzle again had earned the wariness of my priests their suspicions had settled as they came to understand it was inert - now little more than a symbol of a time far behind us all.

The horse I rode upon snorted and I placed these recollections upon a high mantle in my mind to revisit another time as he bucked. In his effort to unseat me I could only conclude that riding with a saddle could not compare to riding without one. The warmth of the horse working beneath me; the ridges of his spine as his strong body flexed against mine with each pressing step. Without stirrups or leather accoutrements, staying atop him as he leapt, spooked or bucked was a challenge and I welcomed each contest. Copernicus's gait had been steady and smooth. He had been loyal and unflinching in my time of need, but the ease of his stride and steadfast trust in the direction of his rider didn't compare to the unbridled exhilaration and speed of the flighty, half-broken stallion I rode now. Death Valley felt so long ago and the memory was a difficult one but my time away from that world had lessened the ache.

Joey, T_é_a, Tristen - all of the friends left behind, I felt their losses keenly even as I was surrounded by a world of new gains. I wonder if it was a matter of tipped scales finally balancing themselves as each day spent here in this life among my loved ones and forgotten memories softened the hard edges of that loss. I wished I had been able to reunite with them a final time after finishing Diva - to see if they too had grown and changed just as Yugi had in my time away - but it was not what destiny had chosen for us.

I turned that thought over in my head like a card and I nudged my heels more insistently into the sides of my horse. The beast complied eagerly, whinnying in enthusiasm and lengthening his gait from a canter to a gallop. The wind hurried to greet me; tugging at my earrings, tossing my cloak and rushing to push away the lighter stray thoughts and leave only the strongest and heaviest behind to be conquered.

It was as it was meant to be.

An ancient Egyptian king didn't belong in their world.

My horse's hooves rushed across the lush lands beyond my palace, crushing countless reeds beneath us as we rode through a golden field toward the dawning sun rising above the horizon. I felt myself smirk into the wind as the stallion charged faster as though willing himself to take flight.

Between me, the stallion and the golden sands and reed fields of the Egyptian afterlife I could think freely, reflect wholly and appreciate with fondness those who I wouldn't see again. I wondered how they were doing, the sorts of people they would become and then redoubled my focus on the beast beneath me as the stallion decided a shin-high log required a knee-high leap and added unexpected height to his jump. I leaned forward with him and then back as he landed. When I had first awoken in Yugi's body I had been missing so many memories and yet somehow the motions of mounting a horse, riding with its strides and leaning into its jumps had come back to me as though it was second nature. That was a blessing.

With a nudge of my heel and a tug of the reigns in my hand I encouraged him to arc backwards toward the palace. The wind in my ears had helped me order my thoughts once more and it was time to return. The horse tossed his mane as we turned for home, putting on a burst of speed as he gained a second wind. I laughed at his spirit as he thundered across the last stretches of the field of reeds toward the desert beyond.

The slicing of sand beneath his hooves became the clattering of stone as we raced beyond the surrounding town and into the palace courtyard toward the royal stable. The horse no doubt had his mind set on his morning meal and at the speed he traveled toward his goal I could do nothing but enjoy his feckless determination to reach his goal.

Speed of course comes with risks as well as merits.

The stallion discovered this a moment too late as he rounded a corner and spooked at the aggravated hiss of a newly awakened cobra. He veered unexpectedly to the side and threw me from his back. The horse jumped and bucked while in mid-air, bolting onward and away from the irritated serpent as I lay tossed in the sand, eye to eye with the cobra.

The cobra slithered a little closer to me as I slowly attempted to rise from my prone position, evidently angry from being nearly trampled to death. It rose up and prepared to strike. I rolled away, my body - and it was my body - was fit and easily able to swiftly leap to its feet as I pushed off from the ground with my arms.

The serpent hissed threateningly at me, recognizing its disadvantage now I was standing and I readied my hand to grasp its neck and throw it... Before its head was abruptly crushed by a large rock and a squealing sound.

My eyebrows rose in surprise and my focus extended beyond my serpentine attacker to behold Mana, sweaty, panting and slightly disheveled from strain depositing such a large uniformly cut slab of stone on the cobra. It was a creative solution, that was certain.

"Where did the stone come from?" I asked somewhat incredulously, amusement seeping into my voice.

Mana huffed and puffed, pointing a finger toward the stable block and grinned "Priest Shimon uses it as a leg up to help him get into the saddle."

I nodded; much like Solomon Muto, Priest Shimon's easy company was a gift. Though, where the man had ample conviviality he did indeed lack the height needed to mount most of the palace horses without a step up.

"I see." I brushed out the sand that had worked its way into the folds of my clothes and nooks of my jewelry with ease. I was pleased that I had taken no damage to my body from the fall. "And what brings you to the stable this early?"

Mana giggled, apparently not bothering with anything other than the absolute truth. She stuck her tongue out a little before replying "_He_ said that horse would throw you."

Brushing the last of the sand from my arms I looked up, glancing around for any sight of the stallion.

Mahad had indeed cautioned me against taking the horse out until he was fully broken, but the stable hands didn't seem to be any nearer achieving that than they were several weeks ago and I had come to respect the beast's rebelliousness.

Of course, there was another explanation.

In jest Seto and I had made a wager over how long it would take to break the stallion and it was a possibility that the High Priest had set to work on dissuading the horse trainers from their duties to skew the result in his favor. This Seto didn't quite have Kaiba's deep reservoir of anger to draw from which made him easier to gamble with, in fact he seemed rather partial to games of chance. It had been an ill-fitting discovery to make as his namesake in the living world had been so vehemently opposed to them. The differences between the two chafed just as much as the similarities. Kaiba's face as he tried and failed to guess which of Magical Hats hid my monsters and bulldozed his way though the wrong one over and over again sprang to my mind unbidden and nudged my lips into a grin.

"Mana." Mahad chided in a gentle tone, no doubt displeased with Mana's gumption. I laughed as the man who had served me so loyally as my Dark Magician stepped out into a stable yard from the attached chamber, possibly having watched for some time.

"Please retrieve the Pharaoh's horse." He requested, turning to me as Mana responded with an enthusiastic "Right away!" and jogged off down the stable yard in the direction the stallion had fled. "I was concerned for your safety."

I turned my grin on him and held up a hand to silence any further words, needing no explanation for his council. It was always welcome. "There are much more obedient horses with better breeding that are just as fast to choose from in the royal stable." He observed, his expression and tone both soft and neutral.

I paused, considering Mahad's unspoken question and watching in the distance as Mana tugged expectantly on the reigns of the lithe stallion to urge him to walk with her, only for the horse to pull abruptly backwards and attempt to trot off in the opposite direction in protest. I chuckled at his antics, unable to articulate why this horse in particular had taken my eye.

I settled for the only answer I could give. "Riding him feels like flying."

"Though-" I turned to Mahad slowly and admitted "-I don't recall owning a horse like this in life." This had been on my mind for some time. A Pharaoh is a living god, and cannot be shown to have fallacies but I wondered if there were still gaps in my memory.

Mahad's expression became pensive, gazing out at the horse across the courtyard as the stallion attempted to tug the reigns out of Mana's hands by thrashing its head around. "Nor do I." He agreed. I frowned and allowed the subject to drop away.

The teachings of my priests told me that my afterlife was a direct reflection of the life I had lived, but made better than reality by the grace of the gods. My deceased loved ones and friends were here just as I recalled them, the weather was nothing less than ideal and the lands I ruled over were Egypt, but lusher and teeming with game and fish beyond what I'd known while alive. A true paradise.

But the reflection was imperfect. It seemed the gods had taken some liberties beyond making the fields more fertile and animals more plentiful...

I was reunited with the dead whom I cherished, but my father was not among them, leaving me to assume the role of Pharaoh once again. Certain people and places had been omitted and others- like the stallion- added.

Yugi had a saying oddly close to this, about not looking gift horses in the mouth.

I whistled and two ears flicked forward as the stallion ceased playing tug of war over the reigns with Mana and turned his head to me, slowly walking in my direction until he was close enough for me to pat his sweaty neck. That was enough.

Though I had been thrown, it had been an enjoyable ride to start a good day.

I noted that the last of the pale pinks and oranges staining the dawn sky had started to give way to a cloudless blue morning. If I wanted to join my priests for the morning meal or prayers I would not attend smelling of horse.

**Kaiba**

For 'heaven' by any sense of the word, the scenery was certainly uninspired.

Sand dunes and a massive red rock mountain range behind the palace were the only features to be found. I knew from a cursory glance at early maps of the Egyptian region dredged up during my research that while this place looked Egypt-like, the geography was wrong. The Nile was too close; the mountains were too substantial and veered off in the wrong direction and peering far to east and west were either completely out of place oases and fields or I was already starting to see mirages - which I doubted. Everything was conveniently located in a way that wasn't true of the real life Egyptian landscape. It was idealized, and yet still prosaic.

Whatever. I had a duel to win. I pressed the button to release the hood of the cockpit and nothing happened.

The pod had jammed. Just great.

I jabbed the button to release the canopy again and listened closely, trying to diagnose the problem by sound alone. The pod made a dull grinding noise. I could hear the hydraulics strain in an attempt to release the seal and then sputter to a stop. Not mechanical failure then. Most likely all the sand.

The desert sneered back at me from beyond the tinted windows of the pod.

Something that granular could easily compromise the mechanisms and it was possible the wind could have tossed enough in through the exhaust vents if the pod had been sat here in this crap for too long.

I lifted my legs to angle them over the dashboard and placing both my feet on the dark grey frame securing the hood in place. I punched the release button once more and pushed with my legs against the frame with everything I had, adding my own strength to the failing hydraulics. It was a low-tech solution, but effective.

The additional brute force was all it took. With a shudder the canopy hissed and the pressure lock released, grinding its gears a little as the hood opened. As designed, it moved upwards and then retracted back towards the rear of the pod to lie almost flat against the rest of the vessel.

I swiped the spare Duel Disk from the front cargo compartment and disembarked by throwing myself over the side of the pod. It was a stodgy shape. I could improve the design if I ended up caring anymore after today. I wasn't intending to. The Dual Dimension System and it had served my purpose. Knowing how backwards the Egyptian pantheon was, the locals would probably start worshiping it as god no matter what it looked like.

There was a sheet of ultra light heat reflective tarpaulin in the rear storage compartment for use in the event of a failure to close the canopy. It snapped into place around the open hatch of the pod quickly, which was good since I didn't have the time to waste. At the very least it would keep the sand out of the cockpit and prevent the instruments from denaturing in this temperature.

The sun was oppressive. So far out into the desert there was nothing but dry heat without a lick of wind. The sweat on my forehead dried almost as soon as it had formed which was convenient for appearances sake but could dehydrate a human body to illness or death with ease.

This was a horrible place to have an afterlife in. Everything was working against me here. Every environmental factor that could impede me was raring to do so. I couldn't believe so much time had been wasted already.

I must have blacked out between dimensions, but had no way of telling how long I'd been unconscious here. The onboard time and date data was fucked; blinking back at me with a consistent '00:00' for the whole time I'd been trying to escape the cockpit. That must have taken at least ten minutes after I'd woken up.

"Tch." And my shoulders and arms were dissolving.

The pod wasn't. Organic matter only, perhaps? Maybe you had to be alive to be a candidate for being forcefully kicked out of a dimension for the dead. But my clothes were dissolving with my body? I hated contradictory rules.

The particulate flying off of me seemed to do so at a steady speed but I'd have to keep an eye on it in case the decay rate accelerated over time. I had no intention of dueling the Pharaoh into the ground -watching him have to come to terms with his own defeat as my Blue-Eyes bared down on him- only to evaporate into a cloud of particles at the last minute.

I had a back-up plan courtesy of Pegasus, of course. But using it would taint any victory that came after.

Fortunately, finding him wasn't going to be an issue. If the solitary ancient Egyptian palace looming on the horizon wasn't enough of a clue on its own, the heat haze reflected a second instance of it into the sky above making its presence unignorable in every direction. Just like him. That figured.

No time to lose.

The desert sand crunched beneath my boots and I remembered so much why I couldn't stand this sort of terrain. With every step it tried to swallow my foot. It was almost impossible to look imposing when wading through so much crap. Waking faster would only exacerbated the issue, so I kept my default calm and steady pace, the one I used so that Mokuba never had trouble keeping up.

He'd seemed so worried in the moments before the launch. Not quite doubtful, or hysterical, but deeply concerned. Across the space station's monitor his eyes had taken on that bright, glassy quality they did when he was trying to stifle the beginning of tears. He was getting older now, and it wasn't something I saw as often as I used to. Soon this would be over, and he'd never have to look at me like that again. Never have to worry over me. He was the younger brother - that wasn't his job. I'd probably have to plan something for us to do when I got back to smooth over his nerves.

I'd apply myself to that after this duel.

I neared the outskirts of what might be called the 'city' surrounding the palace, if I was feeling generous. Who imagines a paradise with an equally grand palace only to surrounded it with a backwater village filled with sun-baked houses and sweaty villagers?

The civilians stopped in the street as I passed them. The merchants yelling at the top of their lungs about their fruit and dates from beneath tatty, tent-like storefronts all fell deathly silent as soon as they saw me. That made me smirk. I was obviously out of place - in fact I couldn't possibly have looked more far removed from the bland linens and sandals that made up the norm here. Despite reducing the populous of the street to a state of self-imposed petrifaction, no one made a move to stop me. Several even scrambled to get the hell out my way.

The palace threshold was a totally different matter.

Two statues of seated pharaohs gazed impassively out at their subjects, flanked by two obelisks covered from base to tip in hieroglyphs. Neither of the statues resembled the one I'd come here to duel, so I guess he hadn't gotten bored enough to start plastering his face on everything yet. What else was there to do in ancient Egypt beside giving every rock, wall and statue a face-lift to resemble you the moment you came to power?

The square archway towered above the city's tallest buildings with rows and rows of horses and chariot races painted up its length in ruddy reds and greens. A winged sun disk motif crowned the archway itself and four beams of wood as tall as the obelisks themselves flew an assortment of multi-colored flags.

It wasn't my aesthetic - in fact I found it repellent - but I couldn't say that it wasn't imposing. That in itself was worthy of acknowledgement. Much like Kaiba Manor.

More pressing was the ten guards neatly lined up into two rows of five with spears in their hands that stood either side of the entryway. I kept my stride even and slow as I approached the first pair in the line and didn't bother to make eye-contact. I paused when the two lowered their spears in front of me, creating an 'X' with their weapons to bar my entry.

I hadn't come all this way just to be turned away at the door by the hired help. I made sure my expression told them that without words. Under my glare a current of recognition ran through the eyes of the first guard, which was completely impossible since I'd never been here before but useful if it got me inside quicker.

A few of the guards looked at each other in confusion, another two further down the line-up turning slightly to mutter to each other. One of the pair holding their spears in front of me eyed me closely. He tensed and relaxed the muscles in his arm, as though unable to decide to keep me at bay or not.

My patience had evaporated with what felt like at least sixty percent of my bodily fluids so I removed the difficult decision from his purview by grabbing his spear and yanking it aside to let me pass. Deciding that whatever I was was something they shouldn't be poking holes in, the second spear retracted quickly and the guards stood by stupefied as I walked passed them into the palace grounds.

I'd have to mock the Pharaoh for his terrible security.

Beyond the archway was a courtyard of sorts surrounded by a red stone walkway lined with white columns and on the other side of it a stone staircase to what architecturally-speaking should be the throne room. A servant girl carrying a pitcher of water dropped the thing in surprise and a second one that looked somewhat familiar but was wearing a higher percentage of golden jewelry jumped at the sight of me and clambered into a nearby waist-high basket.

For a people who believed themselves to be so close to their gods, they sure acted like a bunch of cowards. I also couldn't place why she looked familiar. That was irritating.

I turned away from the basket to ascend the stair case only to find another obstacle had placed himself between me and my duel. He also looked familiar and that enraged me. These people had no reason to look familiar to me and the fact that they did was damn well insulting. In the case of the man now blocking me from the staircase, it was something in his face.

"You should not be here." He lectured dully, as though he knew anything about me. He was a non-entity. Not even worth the time it would take to ream him out. I pushed him to side with ease and ascended the stairs.

There was no force on earth or beyond that would keep me from this.


	3. Chapter 3

**Atem**

I'd come to discover that my High Priest was prone to wandering the grounds in the afternoon.

His restlessness gave us the chance to speak at length out of the ear-shot of the rest of the priesthood and I'd taken to joining him on occasion for his view on current events. While in the presence of the other priests his opinions would be forceful, but tempered. When the two of us walked in privacy I had found I could order him to speak his mind without restraint.

He'd seemed surprised and cautious at this the first time, thinking it was a trick. During life I hadn't actively sought out his council in the same way I had that of others. Now that I could recall so much more about the men and women who surrounded me it was Seto in particular who was made more fascinating in the afterlife than I had found him while we both lived. Understanding him, contrasting him against his living reincarnation, it gave a new context to old memories. He was so like Kaiba and so different at the same time. Their people skills matched up though.

A week of festivities and reverence to celebrate the bounty of Osiris, Foremost of the Westerners, Lord of Love, King of the Living and He Who is Permanently Benign and Youthful, apparently had Seto at odds with Isis.

He explained that he found Isis's preparations lackluster and uninspired. As he described it this was a matter of great importance, especially considering we were to be worshiping the god of the dead, afterlife and underworld. As king of this realm and judge of the afterlife I understood Seto's concern with pleasing Osiris, though doubted Isis's plans were as 'insipid' as he would lead me to believe.

After placating him with the assurance I would personally review Isis's proposed offerings we moved on to speak about trivial things. He smirked as I told him about being thrown by the stallion earlier that morning and we exited the garden toward the throne room for afternoon hearings.

I settled into the throne as had become customary at the end of our strolls and Seto bowed low and knelt on the floor in front of me, speaking at length to bid me a restorative afternoon. Spoken in the voice that both he and Kaiba shared the platitudes were made both normal and surreal at the same time.

The breeze was cool and sunlight filtered through the obelisks to streak across smooth stones of my palace. The scent of incense lingered in the air and the crackle of the braziers set about the walkways made for an environment that satisfied my every sense.

I nodded once to Seto, a silent gesture dismissing him to attend to his other duties. In a fluid, well-practiced motion the priest stood to leave before frowning and turning backward to look at something I couldn't see. I leaned over from my throne to spot what he was sensing.

I heard the calm tones of Mahad faintly from somewhere in the outer cloister, a note of warning in his words.

"You should not be here."

The sound of a dull thump, followed by a pair of rapid and unsteady footsteps catching themselves gave me little doubt somehow that Mahad had just been shoved off balance by whatever it was that was daring to impose upon my afterlife.

I felt my every sense sharpen, felt my ire well and then empty again as quickly as it had come. A gruff and familiar "Get out of my way." spoken beyond my sight momentarily robbed me of every other thought. The voice was unmistakable and I glanced to the priest who had been supplicating himself before me mere moments ago. Despite being the only one here capable of making such a tone my High Priest looked just as perplexed as I was. I needn't have bothered; I already knew who it was that approached.

Echoing around the room before their source could be seen, the impending footsteps were of a person not wearing the sandals I had come to call familiar, but the heavy boots of the modern world. Though I couldn't explain his presence here I prepared myself to face Seto Kaiba once more, a spark of excitement creeping down my spine even as a trepidatious curiosity fought to sully the sensation. I'd removed the Millennium Puzzle from the living world, so how could he be here? Did it matter? No, I decided, it did not. Methodology aside I should have known that placing another barrier between Kaiba and myself would to his eyes stand only as a new limit to overcome.

I smiled unbidden, then schooled my expression into pure confidence and leaned well back into my throne to make myself the picture of comfort.

With a wave of my hand the servants at the corners of the room stepped forward with long hooks to pull aside the drapery hanging over the opening behind my throne. The curtains that shielded the throne room from the mid day sun parted, letting it spill into the room with a blinding intensity. Too many times I had been subjected to Kaiba's theatrics when dueling on his home field. It was time to repay that favor.

With another nod to my priest Seto complied with my unspoken command and stood off to the side of the grand antechamber. Even as he retreated into the half-light at the shadowy edges of the chamber I could see his eyes glaring toward the entrance way for a first look at whatever was about to approach the Pharaoh so brazenly.

They turned blank in confusion as they met their target.

The unmistakable outline of Seto Kaiba climbed the last of the stairs to my palace. He looked unearthly and had somehow managed to make himself appear even more eccentric than I remembered. Glowing blue lines of energy traced the features of his body and mechanical apparatus clung to his skull and costume like something out of Yugi's video games. Seto's soul had been spared the trauma of being transformed into a Duel Monster, but it appeared Kaiba was seeking to correct that oversight in his own lifetime. The white coat I had idly guessed I would never lay eyes upon again flared behind him at its usual impossible angles, reflecting and amplifying the sun in its glossy fabric. It created a halo of light that trailed off of the sharp corners of his silhouette and then dulled as Kaiba crossed the threshold into the chamber proper.

Mahad followed slowly behind and discreetly made his way around the rear of the room. His expression was both stern and pensive.

My sight didn't waver our 'guest' for the length of his approach. Kaiba's gaze was leveled at me with all the intensity I remembered even as his eyes slightly narrowed as they strained against being blinded by the sunlight. I felt the fine hairs on my arms rise in anticipation and rose from my throne to greet the duelist who would always hold the title of my rival.

Without words he thrust out his Duel Disk; or I what I guessed was a Duel Disk. It looked more like armor and seemed to now climb all the way up his arm to his shoulder, but the motion with which Kaiba brandished it was the same.

I felt my smirk return. I had no shortage of questions to ask now that Kaiba was somehow here before me, in my afterlife. They could each wait. It seemed as though we had waited years for a chance to speak this privately. I didn't know what to say, but I wouldn't waste this chance.

"Kaib-".

"-Shut up." I was abruptly interrupted with an audaciousness that only Kaiba seemed to possess. He set my temper on edge in two words and the familiar aggravation that accompanied dealings with the taller duelist swept over me.

"And duel me, Pharaoh." He bit out a fraction of a heartbeat later. His eyes narrowed even further into thin slits as his glower grew harder and I felt my temper prickle warmly at his unfettered rudeness.

"Of course." I replied, blinking slowly at him. His face may be leaner and his body fitter, but this was still Kaiba after all. "I expected nothing less" I assured him. Kaiba's brilliance in coming here was eclipsed only by his single mindedness. I hadn't expected him to make his way here to me under any circumstance, but in reflection perhaps I should of. Perhaps this had been inevitable.

In my brief time connected to Yugi's thoughts I had seen his memories of that day, or at least those Yugi deemed most vital to my understanding of the situation. Through his eyes and ears I had learned of Diva, the specifics of 'Dimension summoning' and had seen in stark detail the moment in which Kaiba's expression fell as his lithe fingers slotted the final pieces of the Millennium Puzzle back together to great anticlimax. The way his teeth gritted, his pupils shrank and for a second he had looked so pained was etched into my partner's recollection. Yugi's thoughts had lingered on that moment and pushed it to the forefront of his mind for my perusal in the seconds we had been connected. I had wondered why. Now I understood. Wise as ever, Yugi had been attempting to show me without words the intensity with which Kaiba hungered for a resolution to our battle.

I would not deny him it. I closed my eyes and took a breath before opening them once more. It was time to finish this.

"I accept your challenge, Kaiba."

"Good" Kaiba replied, sounding almost bored and far from pleased. His breath hitched strangely for a moment. "And this time I'm not letting you go until I've had my revenge. That's a promise, Pharaoh. No matter what it takes I'll defeat you once and for all!" There it was. His tone heated rapidly as he finished that declaration. The sentiment was nothing new but there was a weight to his words and a forbidding heaviness in his eyes that ran the risk of disarming me. Nevertheless, grim determination aside it seemed it would be the slow evaporation of Kaiba's own body that would be the limiting factor of our duel this time.

"Hnh." I chuckled, not bothering to keep my confidence hidden. "You may try." He didn't return the smirk I leveled at him. Sometimes he did; sometimes my appreciation of his fighting spirit was enough to coax out his own amusement in return. It seemed this was not one of those times. Despite his victory in making it here to the afterlife he eyed me stoically without a hint of smugness or anticipation, utterly joyless. That stung me somehow. I would have liked us to part forever on warmer terms than this.

"Remember this Pharaoh; we aren't done until I say so." He stated, so blandly it was difficult to reconcile the words with Kaiba's usual trash talk. "My scars might last forever-" he continued, the volume of his voice dropping to a low growl that promised both challenge and danger "-but they'll be nothing in comparison once I rip you apart!" He roared, every bit as ferocious as the dragons in his deck.

From the periphery of the room, I heard Seto scoff.

Kaiba released me from his glare for the first moment since he had entered the antechamber and warily scanned the room for the source of the noise.

I didn't bother to do the same. I already knew where the priest was. Seto stood shadowed and aloof in a corner where the light from sun and that of the braziers failed to intersect, creating a cloak of darkness to peer from and disappear into. The taller priest used that spot when he wanted to observe proceedings in the throne room while going largely forgotten. This time Mahad also stood with him. I approved of the strategic positioning, granting the illusion of privacy while apparently deeming our intruder too outlandish in appearance to be left alone with me.

The moment Kaiba noticed them was obvious. He stiffened as he picked out Seto even in the shadows of the room by the anger that flashed through the priest's eyes, making them gleam in the fire light.

Kaiba's glare was solid and impassible; sizing Seto up in a long pause before scoffing and turning back to me. "Good likeness." Kaiba commented casually. "Off-brand though. You should get your head checked if you think there's anyone who can replaced me." He continued, as if appraising the quality of a newly summoned hologram.

Seto took a step forward out of the shade, his jaw set in the picture of rage. "You dare to threaten the Pharaoh? Threaten a living god?" he hissed, raw contempt for his modern incarnate radiating through every line of his body. He bowed before me, lowering his head in contrition. "Forgive me Pharaoh. His manner shames the both of us."

I wonder if Seto had been previously aware of Kaiba's existence, or was just able to summarize that the man that looked so much like him must in some way be a part of him.

Kaiba's tempestuousness crashed against the fixed and stalwart anger of my priest as he barked with mocking laughter one moment and then scowled viciously at the nearly identical looking man the next. "Some 'god'."

Briefly he glanced from his look-a-like to the strange black ash that seemed to be rising from his own body. "I don't have time for this". With a whirl of fabric from the tail of his coat he showed his back to Seto to glare into my face again. He had apparently decided that everyone else in the room was unimportant enough to ignore.

"Nice knock-off, but there is only one Seto Kaiba" He announced, as though I needed to be reminded. I laughed at that and he glowered back in reply. Why he was here was obvious as a set of ethereal blue holographic cards lingered in the air above his duel disk, but how he was here was another matter.

"How did you come to be here, Kaiba?" I asked, slowly descending the stairs from my throne to stand level with him and letting the breeze toy with the cape at my shoulders as I did so.

"It doesn't matter. I won't be here long." he replied quickly, glaring pointedly at the dark specs of dust that seemed to be flying away from his arms and shoulders.

I nodded in understanding.

However he'd managed it, Kaiba had come a very long way for this audience and from the rate at which his body seemed to be vanishing there was little time for what he had in mind. "Leave us." I commanded the room at large.

The guards and servants complied in unison, creating a small and silent procession as they left the room. Mahad met my gaze over the chamber with a cautious, questioning look. Seto was seething beside him angrily, his eyes fixated on Kaiba as though willing the duelist to burst into flames. I smiled to Mahad, reassuringly. He took a moment and belatedly began to leave the room while giving Seto a push on the shoulder to get him moving as well. Seto scowled at the contact, the nudge breaking his concentration and forcibly disrupting his attempt to stare Kaiba into pieces. He shot an irritated look at Mahad and trailed behind him until he was stopped in his tracks by a new round of Kaiba's dark, mocking laughter.

I had thought Kaiba had just declared himself to be too pressed for time to start picking fights, but he never could seem to help himself.

"And you're just going to do as he says, like a little lap dog?" Kaiba sneered at Seto, then threw his head back and laughed at him again. "You may look like me, but we are nothing alike."

"Kaiba." I warned with a single sharp word.

Seto rose to Kaiba's bait without hesitation. Of course Kaiba would know exactly the quickest and most effective way to anger himself. "You fool! I am your progenitor. The original. The true expression of your very soul. It is you who is a poor imitation of me." Seto spat back with venom.

"I'm the imitation, huh?" Kaiba surprised me with a follow-up question, either hiding true curiosity behind aggression, or probing for weakness in the other Seto's defenses. "Then why are you here, looking like that?" Kaiba waved his arm at him dismissively. "Your precious Pharaoh may have died when he was sixteen, but according to Ishizu you went on to live a full life as the next Pharaoh."

Neither of my priests had a reply to give. It seemed Kaiba had armed himself with more than just his new Duel Disk.

Seto opened his mouth to shout back and then closed it again, his expression turning thoughtful. Kaiba smirked unpleasantly, a familiar expression he wore when deciding he had won and in doing so transmuted Seto into something beneath his notice. Watching someone argue with themselves this way was absurd, though here with both of them in the same room I was beginning to see more differences than similarities.

It was difficult to tell with the two at a distance, but Kaiba had grown into a slightly larger man than Seto. He seemed a fraction taller than the priest, his face was subtly gaunter and more mature. His shoulders were a little wider and torso built with clearly defined muscle, yet still just as thin as ever. They still had the same eyes, somehow. Both cold and searing and calm and chaotic at the time time, though Kaiba's Japanese blood made his eye shape a fraction more almond-shaped.

So Kaiba was now older than Seto...

The thought gave me pause, though I wasn't sure why. Of course Kaiba would be older, just as Yugi had been. Time was passing in the living world. Kaiba was about to enter the prime of his life, while here in my afterlife Seto would forever be the age I last remembered him. That realization was disquieting, but I couldn't place why.

"Now didn't your 'god' just give you an order?" Kaiba mocked the priest. "Get out, and thanks for the face." He added sarcastically.

Mahad attempted to move Seto again, gently nudging his shoulder. Seto turned to shove him away and stalked off out of the room.

I was unimpressed with Kaiba and his petulance, "Did you really break your way into my afterlife just to insult those closest to me?" Time had clearly passed, yet he was still in the habit of picking fights with everything in the room that would give him one.

"No, that was pro bono." He smirked for the first time since entering my sight and then frowned, looking at me intently. He studied me as I had him moments ago. I wonder if he even noticed that he was switching between tongues- baiting Seto with the language of this world before swapping back to his native Japanese between sentences. I had forgotten Kaiba's resourcefulness, and his ability to seemingly pull things from nowhere when convenient to him. On this occasion it was not just a second language but also a second Duel Disk that he had apparently been concealing somewhere on his person.

"Yugi calls you 'Atem' now." Kaiba grunted, matter-of-factly "Pick a name, Pharaoh. I wanna make sure I'm using the right one when I tell my Blue-Eyes to blast you into oblivion". His long fingers activated the device and waited to punch a name into the holographic keyboard it was generating with a soft yellow glow.

"Both names are suitable." I answered without pause, but in truth the question fascinated me. Names and true names had great power in Egypt. To my people knowing someones name permitted you power over them. I wonder if Kaiba knew this, or was simply asking to satisfy his own perfectionism. "I am still the Pharaoh" I continued gesturing to our surroundings. I was hardly surprised by him stubbornly rolling his eyes at the statement. "However, you may also call me Atem" I finally answered. Kaiba had earned the right to such an address many times over.

He nodded and he tapped the name into the spare Duel Disk. "I'm pretty sure everyone gets to be 'the Pharaoh' of their own private afterlife."

They did not - but correcting him didn't seem worth the trouble with Kaiba's body disappearing so quickly. "Unlike you, some of us don't have the time to spare waiting around for the afterlife to make us kings." he continued distractedly, checking over the Duel Disk's systems as menu after menu sprang up at his command.

Though it was irritating as a rash, I marveled at Kaiba- comparing my nation and sovereignty to his own command of Kaiba Corporation.

He finished with the device and tossed the Duel Disk towards me, which I caught with ease. "So consider this a gift from my kingdom to yours" He declared and swept out his arms with a flourish I hadn't realized I'd missed. The throne room was illuminated by the light of Kaiba's holograms.

Dramatic as ever.

"You haven't changed." I observed, dryly.

Though I had to slide off one of my bracelets, the dueling contraption fit the length of my arm perfectly. I knew that was no coincidence as I fiddled with the matching head set.

"Like you'd know." he muttered, covering up the quiet words with a shout of "Let's get this over with."

That had been an interesting choice of words for someone who had apparently gone to a great deal of trouble to prepare all this.

Trust Kaiba to be as vexing as ever, yet it was good to see him. I probably would never get to do so again.

As though answering his statement the holographic display of my Duel Disk flashed to life, glowing text informing me in tidy lettering that a 'favorites' list of all previously played cards was logged to my user profile for quick access and that a database of all current legal cards was available via the deck builder.

My deck came together easily; a stable of my most loyal monsters from the favorites list and healthy selection of wild cards from the card database for Kaiba to choke on. My stance mirrored his own, the familiar elation of beginning a duel against him filling me up like water poured into a cup.

"Prepare to lose, Seto Kaiba!" I taunted.

**Kaiba**

He was somehow even more than everything I'd remembered, and my memory was photographic. Regal and mighty with every sure movement oozing an easy confidence that was so lacking in everyone else.

He'd stood up to greet me.

Duel start had been and gone and somehow my mind couldn't get off this one single thought. It kept snapping back to it in the white noise seconds of the duel between the ending of my turn and the start of his.

He had stood up to greet me. Powerful people don't need to stand up for anything. Doing so acknowledged that the other person was a threat, or an equal. Gozaburo had taught me that to stay seated was a power play; a clear demonstration of the inferiority of the idiot left standing. He'd used it on me enough times for me to know how effective it was.

I derailed that train of thought. I had to stay focused on this duel or it was going to slip through my fingers.

As predicted, the 'King of Games' hadn't needed a tutorial on how to make the new Duel Disk work. He donned and operated it with ease. It was custom made, like my own. I'd built the pair for this purpose alone. Both featured a network of solar panels just in case of a power failure and I'd also gone to the trouble of applying a dull gold finish to his model and setting up the HUD in yellow instead of the standard blue. I wanted my memory of this to be perfect - not distracted by mismatched parts. The end result was aesthetically pleasing, as though the unit could be a high-tech extension of his tacky jewelry.

I idly noted that the AI I'd made in Atem's image needed to be updated. His body was stronger and better built that my virtual version of him and his skin tone much darker, befitting an Egyptian native.

"I draw" He announced. He drew his card, eye flicking to it to appraise it like a rare jewel while also giving away no reaction to identify it by. The acoustics were crap and the lighting subpar, but the room cast his eyes in a deep wine-like color that matched the red sandstone tiles beneath my feet. I grimaced as his eyes snapped from the card he'd plucked from the Duel Disk to my face and narrowed slightly. He'd caught my moment of distraction.

"How is life treating you?" He asked with a confident smirk that made me scowl.

The question interrupted my chain of thought and I had to look up from my hand at him. Was he trying to 'funny' right now? His expression remained as pompous and composed as it always was. I guess it had just been an ironic turn of phrase.

The mundane question conflicted with the dramatic lines of his pose - every part of him better suited to commanding his monsters into battle or roaring at me in self-righteous fury than 'shooting the breeze'.

"Fine." I answered through gritted teeth. Pleasantries weren't part of our package deal. The hell was he thinking? "Yugi's graduated school top of his class, and Wheeler has steady employment wearing a dog costume." That made me smirk even as it made his eyebrow rise. "No, really." I added. That was probably why he'd asked. Probing for information on his 'friends'. Who despite being his 'friends' hadn't really seemed to care all that much that we was gone. "I don't care about the others." I added flatly.

Assault Wyvern was blown away by a Winged Dragon, Guardian of the Fortress and Horn of the Unicorn combo that I'd seen before in simulation. It was one of the rarer ones. The AI only used it in three point four percent of duels sampled. Of those three point four duels, sixty nine percent also contained a Gaia the Fierce Knight and Curse of Dragon polymerization play, so the moment Curse of Dragon was tribute summoned onto the field I sprang Battle Shout, one of Pegasus's newest releases. By naming a magic card in the opponents hand, Battle Shout allowed you to steal it for yourself.

I predicted Polymerization and laughed as I turned his stolen card against, him - using it fuse together X-Head Cannon, Y-Dragon Head and Z-Metal Tank into XYZ-Dragon Cannon. He smirked back.

Only duelists - no matter how poor quality in the Mutt's case - were worth me spending a single sliver of my valuable time checking up on. Atem nodded, seeming to understand that without needing to be told. Good. "Mokuba probably knows what the rest are up to" I ventured. Mokuba kept an eye on things like that.

This subset of dueling behaviors I'd named 'Kingdom Runs' since they mainly featured the older cards he'd played during Duelist Kingdom. Harvesting that data from the duel boxes so long after the fact had been time consuming, but all worth it if I could use it to crush him. Still, I wondered why the AI I'd created chose to play Kingdom Runs at all. I hadn't programmed it to experience nostalgia, if that was what this was.

This duel subset also often converged with plays from the 'Taurus Run', in which the AI purposefully played older cards that it knew would piss me off and then watched me slam my face into trap after trap in an attempt to wipe them off the field. Swords of Revealing Light, Mammoth Graveyard and every single known form of Kuriboh were mainstays, as well as magic and trap cards designed to steal my Blue-Eyes from me.

"How is Mokuba?" He asked with genuine curiosity. Living Egypt must be boring if this is the apex of conversation.

"Also fine." I managed to hiss through my teeth. "He cut his hair." I couldn't think of what else to say. 'Small talk' hadn't been among the many assets I'd prepared for this duel.

"That's good." He commented idly. Arm sweeping and limber fingers flexing as he made his next play.

Cutting the loss of his Gaia the Dragon Champion combo, he played Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts in defense mode, placing two cards face down. One of them was probably one of many different possible trap cards to cut my XYZ-Dragon Cannon's attack down to size if I moved to strike Curse of Dragon.

"You're chatty. Is this some new trick to throw me off my game? What's next - will you break into song?" I sneered.

He laughed at the comment, openly, clearly enjoying himself and shook his head slightly. His heavy earrings collided with his strong jawline as he did so. It made my pulse pick up. I didn't have to, but I waited for him to finish and the sound to die down before starting my turn. Whatever. I'd be the one laughing by the time this was over.

I'd come here to get a job done, but dueling him once more was heady. I'd seen all these moves before in simulation data, but playing it out with the real thing - having him in front of me - there was no feeling like it. I didn't want to waste time trying to describe it, so I didn't bother. The only channel for my energy at this moment should be this very duel.

I drew my card and that feeling of elation drained as I was reminded of my purpose.

It looked innocuous enough and had even been in my deck several times throughout my dueling career, but here and now the context behind its new and cowardly purpose left me irritated. Bitter. This was the one necessary for my plan and I scowled at it for being a harbinger of that outcome. It leered at me from my hand and I ignored it.

I set Lord of D. onto the field and added a face down card of my own. I'd deal with whatever his face down cards were next turn.

I looked across the field to notice Atem was watching me carefully and shot me his most condescending smirk as his turn began. He set Kuriboh onto the field in attack mode.

My guess he'd follow up with something from the Taurus Run was correct. Statistical probabilities didn't lie.

In this scenario, the ridiculous trash monster was always protected against front on assaults. In fact, he was relying on me to take the bait and attack it out right. That irritated me just as much as the card itself. Kuriboh was rarely guarded against magic cards though. With my trump card in my hand it was time to get this done. With a stab of abject dislike, I paid the eight hundred life points to activate Brain Control and snatched the hairball to my side of the field.

I smirked back at Atem, as the unexpected play had his eyebrows rising slightly, eyes warily focused on me like lasers. Looks like I'd broken even his poker face just a bit.

Eight hundred life points for a three hundred attack point monster. What a scam. But if he was playing it then he had something special planned, and I'd be dead before I allowed another insulting Kuriboh combo to hand me defeat.

I activated Gift of The Mystical Elf, the three monsters on my side of the field restoring my life points by nine hundred and then sacrificed Kuriboh with pleasure to summon Different Dimension Dragon.

Atem's eyes narrowed slightly.

"Kaiba, How is it that you seem to know how to counter every move I make before I've made it?" Atem's voice was neutral, laced with an undertone of suspicion and none of the accusation that mine would have had in the opposite position.

I was surprised he couldn't guess; or maybe data sets and AI training was simply beyond his imagination.

"I've been running simulations against you." I replied, in no mood for dancing around the question. There wasn't going to be enough time to be subversive. I watched the particles flake away from my body. The speed wasn't consistent with my earlier observation - the rate of decay had increased.

There was a long pause. Atem frowned at me thoughtfully. I guess pairing that name with him would get easier with practice. "How many?"

Why did that matter?

I didn't have an accurate readout to hand. Even while I was sleeping or at work the computer was constantly running and re-running the simulations. Back in the real world it was probably still running them now. I hadn't told it to stop, yet. I shrugged, feeling as I did so the dampness of my sweat-soaked flight suit press against all the wrong places. "Hundreds of thousands" I estimated.

"Hundreds of thousands?" Atem repeated slowly and forcefully, as though checking what he'd heard was correct. His thoughtful frown turned into a displeased glower.

I was suddenly furious. The fucking nerve. If he'd finished our business before escaping to hide out here in this little dreamland none of it would be necessary. This was on him! Not me! It was time to put it right.

His glare eased a bit - I had no fucking idea why- and he resumed his line of questioning with a hostile curiosity. "If you can run hundreds of thousands of duels just like this, then come here at all?"

I scoffed, bitterly. Didn't he understand anything? He of all people should have understood.

Beating the AI hadn't felt like winning. It had felt... 'inevitable'.

Once even that had seemed impossible, but with so much duel simulation data logged and both myself and a super computer applied to the task it had really only been a matter of time.

After defeating it I had returned to the victory simulation to run diagnostics; loading the AI back up again to the moment after the duel had ended with me as the winner. I wanted to see if the AI would look just as bereft as I felt each time I was handed defeat. I wanted to hear what it would say.

It did seem surprised initially, but then smirked at me and said "Well done, Kaiba. That was a good duel." I don't know why that was so unacceptable, but it had been. It was just... just. It was pedestrian! Like he was proud of me. Like I was some pet he'd taught to do a neat trick.

"Because when I won, it didn't mean anything." I spat out. It wasn't the full answer, but I didn't know the full answer.

If I could have been satisfied with the AI, I wouldn't need to be here at all.


	4. Chapter 4

**Atem**

It was everything a duel with Kaiba always was, yet also it wasn't.

It was quieter. We both took our turns with immediacy and didn't bother to boast our more brilliant plays, already knowing the other would appreciate them without words. There was also a soberness to it that disquieted me. Kaiba faced me down coldly. While his frigid composure was often present at the beginning of our duels it was always quick to thaw as his stoicism became overheated by his passion for battle. That rising energy was absent here.

He watched me impassively, stance gathered together and expression set in stone. It seemed to him this was business without any pleasure until he had drawn that last card. Then that displeasure had become only thinly veiled irritation.

Chilly blue eyes had stared at it blankly, then narrowed in resentment. He seemed angered to see this card, as though it had intruded into his hand. Given all Kaiba's obvious preparation I doubted he'd have allowed something unwanted to accidentally slip into his deck. Whatever it was, it was there by design but that didn't seem to prevent it from lowering his already grim mood.

It was a selfish desire, but I didn't want this to be the atmosphere of our final duel. I wished for our last battle to elevate both of us to the pinnacle of our capabilities; to be an ultimate clash of minds and hearts. I wanted to see Kaiba riled and intense, brandishing his cards at me with wild gestures and poses, eyes gleaming. Not like this. Not acting as though this was but a bleak obligation to be dealt with before whatever was next listed on his schedule.

Perhaps he was similarly perturbed.

He kept loosing focus momentarily between our turns and I knew such a slip-up would be deemed unacceptable to him of all people. Something was wrong here. Coaxing him to speak revealed nothing but his own fixation on his task. It had been difficult not to smirk as my calm questions were met with only short, loud answers, until I had asked that final one. There had been a rawness to the last of his shouted words that caught me off guard. That tone kept me at bay.

_"Because when I won, it didn't mean anything!"_ He'd spat that sentence at me as though having to force the words through his teeth and tilted his head until his hair overshadowed his eyes completely.

He had been 'simulating' me. How that was possible I was sure was a lengthy conversation that we didn't have time for.

He recovered a moment later; the past not weighing him down so long as it could be ignored. As always. "Nice jewelry." He commented with exaggerated boredom, deflecting the topic away from him as it neared touching upon something personal that he would fight me just for the right not to talk about. Why that was what he chose to fixate upon I could scarcely imagine, but the jeer was hypocritical at best.

"You can't be serious?" I swept my hand toward him in an arc, gesturing down the length of his outfit and I emphasized arching an incredulous eyebrow. All of that. Just, all of that.

His single snap of laughter was genuine.

He looked so remarkably out of place here - neon lights and white leather glowing in the halls of my palace - yet also seemed to command the space with absolution. I imagined my throne room would forever seem a little duller once he was gone. Though, it would also be a lot more peaceful.

"This is all functional and entirely necessary equipment." He added, his tone nearing as 'playful' as I'd ever known it to get and several degrees warmer than the rest of our exchange had been thus far. "This suit keeps my body in this dimension. For the moment anyway."

I shook my head, amused. The practicality of it made it no less ostentatious. I pressed him, exactly matching the lukewarm tone of his previous comment."You look like a cyborg." Or a Duel Monster.

"Who ever heard of an ancient Egyptian king knowing what a cyborg is?" He countered. He made a soft "tch" sound and then returned to business as before, sculpting his features back into stone. Our brief repartee was over just as quickly as it had begun.

I returned my thoughts to the duel.

Kaiba's apparently well-practiced countermeasures against my last few moves had been suspicious and exasperating. Though I found the idea of him honing himself against a fake 'me' galling, it didn't change much. Kaiba had always pressed his advantage wherever he could and it had never worked out to his satisfaction. As any true duelist knew, no matter the advantage no victory was ever guaranteed. Whatever insights Kaiba believed to have at his side, I wouldn't back down from his challenge.

My turn came around and I was curious to see what it was that he had drawn last turn and had pulled his lips into such a thin line. "Lets see if you've simulated this!" I announced. "I active the magic card, Exchange." If whatever Kaiba was planning made the duelist himself this displeased, then I wanted forewarning.

Kaiba's jaw locked like a vice and skin turned slightly ashen for a moment. I didn't need to look at his hand to know that I had revealed at least one Blue-Eyes White Dragon. His expression was telling enough. I waited for him to take a step toward me, but he didn't move."What's wrong, Kaiba? Afraid to lose one of your dragons?" I smirked. Taunting him seemed as close as I would get to animating him in the manner I hoped for.

"Are you for real right now?" he scoffed, not moving a single muscle. "Just give it a second." I understood his lack of movement in the next moment.

As the cards we used were holographic the Duel Disk automatically swapped our hands without either of us needing to cross into the center of the duel area to trade, as had been the case with the physical cards. That was a disappointment. I would have liked to have had a closer look at him one last time. Instead his cards hovered before me, waiting for me to select which of them to claim. Many of them were as familiar to me as my own.

"And just to set the record straight, taking one my Blue-Eyes will only make this worse for you." He scowled, eyes narrowing sharply. "Do it and this goes from being a duel to a slaughter."

I inclined my head, conceding his point and refocused my attention upon his cards. It was good simply to hear him speak, even only if it was to assure me my punishment for taking his cards would be swift and brutal.

There was nothing here that seemed out of place. Most were cards I'd known Kaiba to use previously. Polymerization, Ring of Destruction, two unfamiliar cards by the names of Pandemic Dragon and Dragon's Orb, and of course all three of his Blue-Eyes.

I was surprised he hadn't tried to flatten me with his dragons yet, but Kaiba had been playing strangely. He was taking great trouble to see to it our life points remained fairly equal, reluctantly defending and savagely attacking as needed to keep the balance.

Him bothering to use a card that restored his own life points was not unheard of, but still rare. It contradicted his normal berserker-style of play, and absconding with Kuriboh; that had been unexpected. Was this just what his simulations told him was necessary to beat me or was it the natural evolution his dueling style had taken in the time we had been apart?

Perhaps that was how it was meant to be. The living grow and change over time, and the dead do not...Yet given his look of distaste each time he set a monster into defense mode I doubted playing this way was coming naturally to him.

He shot me a dark glare across the field, clearly believing me to be about to take away one of his precious dragons. I smirked at him to set his teeth on edge and selected Polymerization to defy his expectations. He had stolen the same card from me earlier - it seemed like fair recompense. I suspected Kaiba would take Magical Hats from my own hand, just so I couldn't frustrate him with it later.

His face recovered a little color as his hand was returned to him with his dragons untouched, but it was another card that attracted his irritated scowl once more. Apparently whatever strategy he was planning that made him look so ill at ease, Polymerization hadn't been a part of it. His card sat ready in my hand, projected in the bright yellow color Kaiba had prepared for me rather than the futuristic neon blue he was using for himself. His attention to detail was difficult to ignore. Playing the card, I fused together Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts with Berfomet to create Chimera the Flying Mythical Beast. Not yet strong enough to conquer Kaiba's XYZ-Dragon Cannon, but soon to change as I empowered my new monster with Fusion Weapon to give it the edge it needed.

Chimera the Flying Mythical Beast roared hungrily and struck down the machine monster - dropping Kaiba's life points and earning a glower from the taller duelist. Whatever his new strategy, I would defeat it.

Simulations or not, this game was far from done.

**Mokuba**

"_Seto, promise you'll come back."_

He hadn't.

He'd gone, and I didn't know if he was coming back. I'd asked him to promise me he would, and he hadn't.

I think he planned to come back and I was determined not to take it personally. Don't get me wrong, my big brother was the best ever and there was no way he'd just run off to another dimension and leave me all alone on purpose... but accidents happened. He didn't always think straight. For being a full on certifiable genius, it was like there was this switch that made half his brain stop working when anything to do with the Other Yugi came up. Whenever this switch flicked on it was the bit that made the rational decisions that was the first casualty.

Stupid thing is, he'd actually been getting better.

Like, he stopped dueling and locked his deck away after Battle City and things had gotten a lot less manic. But it hadn't lasted. One thing after another had dragged him back and messed with that internal switch and then after the Other Yugi 'died' it was like the controls had short circuited and the result was this crazy burst of energy that he threw into weird projects that made no sense just like while he was building Death-T. Even I couldn't follow what he was thinking on some days and sometimes I think neither could he.

And now he was gone and I wondered if on some level he'd meant it to go down this way. Like, way deep deep down he'd chosen this as his way out, just like Gozaburo had chosen a window.

Crap.

There was this pressure in my chest like some fat guy was sat on it. It had started as I rode the space station's elevator back down to the surface on my own with a bag of Seto's stuff. My palms were sweaty and I had to shove them in my pockets to stop them from shaking as the chauffeur drove me back to the mansion. Hobson had answered the door and tried to get me to eat something but honestly I felt like I was going to be sick so I just told him I was tired and went to my bedroom.

Until my brother came back – or failed to come back – I had to keep up the illusion of business as usual. Keep calm and pretend everything is normal, because Seto was counting on me to do that. I repeated that over and over to myself as I lay in bed still in my work clothes, not really sure if I was aiming to fall asleep or just lie here and not move until my big brother walked back through the door to get me...

Crap! I didn't remember falling asleep, but I must have.

I guess the house creaked, or the windows rattled or something. Suddenly I was wide awake and in my bed and my heart was pounding and my eyes were trying to water like a little brat's. Damn. I promised myself I wouldn't cry anymore. Crying was for kids. Seto never cried when he was my age. Seto never cried at all.

My sheets had twisted so tight around me I tried to get up and nearly fell out of bed. I tripped over onto the floor, then slumped down next to my bed and pulled my knees to my chest, holding them against me.

I would have welcomed it, you know. That dream of being stuck in a giant Capmon egg or reliving having my soul stolen. They were scary but so much better than this. Seto had updated his will three times in three days. He thought something was going to happen. He wasn't as good at hiding things from me as he used to be, or maybe I'd just smartened up... or maybe he just didn't care enough to bother anymore.

I'm pretty sure finding that out was what had set off this new nightmare...

Everything about it was indistinct, which made it pretty different from all of the 'penalty games' Seto and I had lost. I recalled everything about them. Seto did too. He didn't scream when the nightmares woke him up, but his eyes screamed for him for hours afterwards so I knew when he'd had one. This nightmare was softer around the edges and the center image was hard to see, like foxing on an old playing card. The peripheral details really didn't matter. There was only one bit of it I recalled with clarity and that little bit was all I needed.

I was in his office at KaibaCorp but none of his stuff was in there anymore, just mine. I think it was my office now. The only thing left of him was a framed picture propped up on my desk, one of the ones from the photo shoot he had a couple of weeks ago to prep for the release of the new Duel Disk system that just made him look so freaking cool. I picked it up and saw the hand I was using was all grown-up. The office light caught on the picture frame and I could see my own face reflected in the glass. I was maybe, like, ten years older than now. I wasn't a kid anymore. I was an adult, an adult looking back at the photograph of my big brother, who was dead. Who I was older than now. Who'd never gotten to be an adult, because he'd gone away to chase after the Other Yugi and never came back.

I didn't want to think about it so I mashed my palms into my eyes and rubbed until I could see through the tears. Then I got up.

I didn't like being in the mansion alone. I never had. When we first got here I swore it was haunted. Seto told me it was normal to be afraid, that it was a big, dark, empty house with creepy statues and old walls that creaked and groaned. I think Gozaburo had sensed that fear.

The first thing he'd done when we'd gotten here is given us bedrooms on different sides of the building and then made the rule that we were never to walk the halls at night. Seto's room had been close to Gozaburo's by design – that was the part of the mansion that saw the most use. The furnishings there were traditional but newer and the lighting was better. My room was in the section of the house meant for guests – the part that never got used and the maids didn't clean as thoroughly. That was by design too. Gozaburo had never really seen me as a permanent fixture of his household... but considering what that had meant for Seto maybe that was a good thing in the end. Those corridors were lined with marble statues pulling strange faces and older water pipes that rattled in the walls. I spent the first two years terrified of my own room. Eventually I'd found there were better things to be terrified of.

After Gozaburo died my big brother claimed his place in every way, at work and in the mansion. He moved into Gozaburo's room as a spoil of war... though that description was a bit generous all things considered. Seto started sleeping in that room, but never really seemed to occupy it. He treated it more like a hotel suite. I'd moved into Seto's old room since it was closer and out of use. I liked it. Now it was mine. It still smelt like him a little even after these years, or maybe I just thought it did and was imagining it. It was like some echo of him was still here. When he'd been in a coma in the room down the hall this was all I'd had.

Would I still feel him here if he...

If he didn't come back?

The electronic lock on his room was set to my birthday. Mine was set to his. It was an obvious pair of combinations but we'd always done it that way if we thought we may need to use each others rooms or devices. I bet he'd set his phone to match, wherever it was.

I jabbed '0707' into the keypad and it beeped at me before opening. Electronic locks were the only modern advancement he'd had bothered to make to the rooms of the Kaiba mansion, and even then only to our bedrooms. Tradition and historical architecture didn't mean a damn to Seto. Preserving the integrity of the mansion wasn't on his priority list, so I wondered why every wall hadn't been replaced with holographic projectors and the roof lined with solar panels. Either way, he hated physical keys. He loved entry cards and complex security systems, but actual metal keys with teeth that you kept on a ring and jingled in your pocket were 'relics' as he described them. Because of that nothing else in his room was ever locked, including the door to his en suite or the medical cabinet inside.

I felt bad for this, because I wasn't supposed to know any of it was here. I wasn't supposed to know about the second draw down next to his bathroom sink, about the little collection of plastic bottles filled with pills hidden in the back corner. The dates on each of the prescriptions was pretty telling. Antipsychotics in the days after Battle City, painkillers for his shoulder after the Pyramid of Light thing, old sedatives from right after he took over KaibaCorp. Antidepressants from a few months ago, which kinda explained why he'd been all over the map back then.

I wonder how he even got these?

Not where they came from – that was obvious. We had our own doctor and a private therapist who'd been paid to do basically nothing for like, five years. I think she'd made one appointment with us in all the time we'd been here to talk us through the stages of grief after Gozaburo committed suicide, which to me just confirmed she didn't have a clue about me or my brother. Seto had sat impatiently through denial and anger, laughed like a crazy person through bargaining and depression and told her to get out or get a new job as she started explaining acceptance. She'd never tried to make another appointment after that.

Getting the medications from either of them would have been easy for him; I just wondered how he'd broached these conversations. My brother could hardly even talk to me about personal things and I'd known him my whole life. The thought of him opening up enough to even describe the most basic of symptoms to someone else was just weird.

The bottles had all been pretty much full when I'd started sneaking pills out. I think he'd maybe tried each prescription once or twice and then given up on them. I wonder what would have happened if Seto had stuck with them and kept on going instead of stopping the treatment two pills in. Probably nothing, but it was nice to dream.

I wasn't going to get back to sleep on my own, and I was also feeling pretty anxious. That was reason enough, right?

I ignored the antipsycotics and painkillers but tipped out a few of the sedatives. Seto wasn't going to notice. Even if he did it wouldn't be so bad, because that meant he'd be back here with me. He'd have to be alive to notice.

It was probably just because I was sneaking around, but the phone ringing in Seto's room made me jump. I stuffed the pills into my pocket and ducked my head out of the en suite and back into his bedroom.

Seto kept a landline on his desk; dunno why - he was never in here and whenever he needed a desk he used the one in his office. One thing I did know was that I could count all the people that had the number to this phone on one hand. It was Seto's private line after all; getting a hold of it was like getting a fist bump from a god. I cleared my throat and wiped my face as I approached it. Whoever actually was managing to call through on this line had to be important. I picked up the receiver and it pretty much sprang to life at the volume of the callers voice.

"Kaiba-boy! Thank goodness." Came the cheerful greeting, just mocking enough to be audible over the phone.

"Pegasus?" Oh great. What did he want now? And why the hell did he have my brother's private number?

There was a pause on the other end and he spoke again with so much added sweetness it could have made my teeth rot. "Two different Kaibas in as many weeks; what fabulous fortune."

Urg. Any faker and one of us would probably spontaneously choke to death on the dumbness of it all. I so wasn't in the mood for this. "Yeah, spare me. How did you get this number?" 'And don't call back' was as implied - very heavily implied.

"Nevermind that, I need to speak to Kaiba-boy" He replied. I hated when people tried to dismiss me.

"He's unavailable." I settled on. Technically that was true - if shooting yourself into another dimension in an untested prototype didn't make you unavailable then I don't know what would.

Pegasus huffed on the other line, finally dropping the sickly sweet act. "Oh please. His office has been giving me that same spiel for two days and it's starting to bore me. Just put him on, won't you Mokuba-boy?"

Yeah, no. "What part don't you get about 'unavailable'?" I repeated the key word slowly and deliberately, hoping he'd take the hint.

His voice dropped in volume and pitch and his next words were rushed and important. "Listen you little ingrate, I may have put Kaiba-boy in very real danger and I need to speak to him." That was weird... Pegasus actually sounded genuinely concerned. I guess if you work with someone as closely as my brother did with Pegasus for long enough it just becomes practical to keep an eye out for them. After all, without KaibaCorp's tech, tournaments, officially licensed games and marketing Duel Monsters would have fallen out of the limelight by now, just like Capsule Monsters and Dungeon Dice Monsters already had.

With all that sorted in my head I was willing to give Pegasus the benefit of the doubt, but this was to do with my big brother after all. No one was going to get off free if he'd set us up.

I tried to keep my tone level but firm. "Why? What did you do, Pegasus? Try explaining it to this Kaiba and I'll judge if it's important enough to pass along to my big brother."

There was a sigh on the other end of the phone; soft and quiet which was two words I didn't associate with Pegasus, at all.

"I'm sure your little henchman can give you the full details, but a short while ago I invited Kaiba boy to my island to take look at a new stone tablet unearthed in Egypt."

Oh yeah - I'm sure Seto just loved that. It explained where the photograph he'd been decoding came from though.

"Yeah, I saw the photo." The translated script had been a bit weird but Seto seemed to think he knew what he was doing. It had read like a hocus-pocus magic chant from a old story but I hadn't wanted to tell him that.

"I'd believed it was depicting a game between Kaiba and the Pharaoh and that's what I told Kaiba-boy, but it isn't." Pegasus warned in a low voice. "The full translation of another of the pieces came in yesterday." This was starting to sound bad. That figured. I pressed the receiver even closer up against my ear to make sure I didn't miss a word in case Seto's life ended up depending on it. It wasn't like crazier things hadn't happened. "I've arranged for both of them to be flown into Domino Museum. They'll be being rearranged as we speak." Pegasus continued, like he was building up to something dramatic.

"Why? What's so important about-"

"-Until then tell Kaiba-boy that he must not under any circumstances use that incantation!" Pegasus announced over me and the bad feeling I'd had since before Seto had left doubled up.

Crap.

Here we go again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Mahad**

"What are you doing?" Mana questioned, I slowly opened my eyes to view her. Her head was tilted slightly to the side in curiosity making her unruly hair stream down her shoulder. She was the picture of confusion.

"Waiting." I replied with a smile.

The Other Seto was a stranger to everyone but the Pharaoh, Mana and myself. A soul was a curious thing - able to be divided into multiple parts and stored in many places in a state that was both separate and linked. A part of my soul and that of my apprentice would forever be sealed in the tablets of Egypt, still preserved in the tombs and museums of the living world. Re-imagined as cards, we had looked upon the face of Seto's pale reincarnation many times as he did battle against the Pharaoh. The tether between soul fragments was loose; the memories I gleaned this way were distant but no less exact. Seeing him once more was unnerving, but perhaps that was simply because he so resembled the other priest who stood here waiting with me.

Seto was quietly seething from his position across the archway and had been since the Pharaoh had dismissed us and his white counterpart had mocked him. It had set him in a very poor mood. While I was contented to wait patiently just beyond the throne room should I be needed by my Pharaoh, Seto was clearly and unashamedly attempting to ease-drop on their conversation. He tapped his foot angrily in an ever increasing rhythm. I could only surmise he was unable to hear anything and would also guess that it was the very noise he was creating that was preventing him from doing so.

"The temple is ready for the Pharaoh's review of my offerings." drifted Isis's silken voice. I hadn't noticed her approach and judging by the way Seto abruptly wheeled around attempting to find the source of her statement, nor had he. He glared at Isis as she stepped into the courtyard, leering at her in a way that was both incredulous and irritated. "I have no patience for your silent ambushes, Isis."

"Of course you do not" Isis retorted in false agreement, respectfully lowering her head as she did so. I followed the thread she was unraveling easily.

"Patience is the measure of a true sorcerer." I told Mana, my tone soft yet the words loud enough to travel the distance to Seto's ears. As predicted, he aimed a foul look at me. Teasing him was too easy.

"So is decisiveness." He bit back, snake-like. "How can you be so relaxed? We should dispose of this intruder before his presence here takes root." Seto's hand instinctively flexed to grip at the Rod that was no longer in his possession.

I glanced to Isis and she to me in that same moment. We shared the same thought. Of course it would be Seto's first instinct to dispatch a man who was for all intensive purposes 'himself'. He and Seto Kaiba seemed to share their mutual dislike of one another.

"No." I replied simply, my eyes and voice turning on Seto sternly the moment the suggestion had been given. I locked my eyes with his, lending weight to my words. "Seto Kaiba may be an intruder but he is no enemy. He is your reincarnation from the living world."

Seto snatched his head to the side defiantly and scowled at the assertion.

"The two of you may be too similar for your comfort, but he is a valued friend to the Pharaoh-"

"-We are nothing alike." Seto swiftly snapped back.

"Are you not?" I slowly pondered aloud with false contemplation. "You share a role, a face, a name and boast the White Dragon as your champion..." I continued, refusing to pause even as his sharp bark of "What!?" threatened to interrupt me at the news his beloved beast served his modern incarnation as readily as she served he himself. "...yes, there are truly no commonalities at all." I finished.

"Sarcasm does not suit you!" he hissed back through gritted teeth. His nerves were now obviously on edge, though it was difficult to tell which part had upset him most.

"Perhaps not." I agreed, bringing my mockery to an end. "However the fact remains he has proven himself a formidable ally. Ending his life is not a proposal to approve of. Do not entertain the thought."

Seto's lip curled at the reprimand and he crossed his arms against his chest sulkily.

"He is an imposter; not fit to command _her_." He sneered quietly to himself, an undertone of betrayal thick in his voice.

Of all the many facets of the situation to take aim at it was interesting that it was the loyalty of his dragon that drew his ire most readily. Our High Priest did not know what it was to be reborn as a card-bound spirit in the living world. He did not understand that while the devotion of the White Dragon was given freely to Seto Kaiba this was not obligated to be so, as one of the dragons had very well proven when it refused him. Yet even in spite of his rage and duplicity the spirit of the White Dragon saw qualities redeeming enough in Seto Kaiba to secure her continuing fealty - a trait that our Pharaoh shared too.

Indeed, we would do well to be cautious in how we approached Seto Kaiba.

The Pharaoh named him his friend. Once I had named Isis the same. That, the attentiveness with which the Pharaoh had attended him in the throne room and the vehemence with which he had fought against all that would do the other harm in the living world made me contemplative.

"You call him an ally, and yet he has imposed his presence upon this world without the Pharaoh's permission." Isis noted, keeping her tone even, "It is reckless for the living to haunt the dead". Seto's expression grew suspicious as Isis agreed with his point of view. He leaned back slightly to increase his own height. I wonder why he bothered; he was already the tallest person here.

Mana's torn expression revealed a mistrust, as did Isis's tone. It seemed that my mind alone remained open to the Pharaoh's guest.

Of our congregation I had taken it upon myself to show 'Kaiba' the least hostility, yet I was also the only soul beyond my Pharaoh who fully understood what terrible acts he was capable of. Even Mana had only found a place in the Pharaoh's deck as the Dark Magician Girl after the darkest of his actions had already been committed. I saw memories of early battles as clearly as I saw my companions in front of me. His face was a grim recollection - a desperate or half-mad boy in blue with empty eyes and cruel intentions; a thief and a coward determined to tear apart what he could not possess.

Yet still a youth, nevertheless. A point worthy of attention.

"He is little more than a boy" I stated. Hidden from sight beneath the soft layers of our robes Isis covered my hand with hers and squeezed it softly. I was thankful for her calm strength at this time. I returned the gesture.

"I respect the courage to make such a comment, as several among us are also 'little more than boys'." Isis agreed diplomatically. "Yet had power enough to demand his challenge be observed by the Pharaoh" she mused aloud to herself. I wonder how she knew of this already. Could it be she had foreseen this day once before while she had been guardian to the powers of the Millennium Necklace? "A demand that the Pharaoh saw fit to grant." Isis added.

I understood the path the priestess's thoughts were traveling.

Granting such an audience was the right of the Pharaoh alone and with exception to our own Seto and myself I doubted a challenge from any of the priesthood would have been accepted so easily. To do so was to acknowledge the challenger as an equal.

It seemed Seto's thoughts had reflected my own. "He claimed he was the king of his world and that the Pharaoh named me the ruler of Egypt after his sealing." He shot a look at me that mirrored the note of challenge in his statement. I shook my head at him softly, telling him without words that I truly had no further insight on the subject to offer. Seto's shoulders fell a little in disappointment before their owner squared them again to hide such a thing. He scowled viciously at me for good measure and then slunk off to the side to lean non-nonchalant against a pillar.

"I know only this-" I offered, hoping to soothe the young High Priest's upset. He had risen from humble beginnings and it was easy to forget that he did not share the same tolerance for the vague or uncertain that those normally raised to his office had been educated from childhood to accept. "Seto Kaiba is no king but he has dedicated himself to acquiring wealth and power in a world where these things are worth more than royal blood. By his own standards, he did not lie."

Isis hummed thoughtfully and her expression drew inward, becoming contemplative. Her hand ghosted across her empty clavicle. "I had a vision similar to this once. The Other Seto will use an incantation to bargain he and the Pharaoh back into the world of the living."

Was that his goal here? To deprive the Pharaoh of a world beyond his reach? It explained much and failed to explain so much more. Seto Kaiba had not arrived here wearing the violence of a conqueror nor the guile of a thief. Had his desires been so simple or his heart so heavily weighted I doubt the gods would have allowed him entry into this afterlife.

"It seemed the result did not achieve his intentions." She noted. That was of little surprise. Should returning the dead to life ever become so trivial the balance of life itself would become upset.

A rueful smirk was the only response given by Seto, though as his immediate concern was satisfied his anger for the subject of our vexation returned in earnest. "He'd be foolish to try and each of you would be indolent to allow it."

"As would you." I countered easily. Seto's eyes narrowed a little, while Mana and Isis exchanged glances at my side. It seemed we all knew he had been bested. With an irate flurry of his robe he turned on his heel and prowled away.

Mana lingered close to me as he made his exit and then gently yet conspiratorially nudged me in the arm in reprimand. I nodded to my apprentice with amusement and was pleased that she needed no instruction to resume Seto's position by the entry way. It did indeed have the best vantage point for overhearing conversations in the throne room. Her attempt at ease-dropping was even more obvious than Seto's had been, but at the very least it was mirthful.

I closed my eyes once more, content to align myself with the energies of the world until I was needed.

**Yugi**

Bmpf bumpf bumpf bmpf bpf.

I leaned out of my wardrobe as the sound of feet charging up the stairs thudded from the hallway. I'd wanted to finish this up before Joey came over but he was early. I ran the pants through my hands. I still liked the smooth texture even if they weren't really my thing anymore.

I frowned at them. They'd been expensive, and they would be warm to wear in the fall... but I doubted I'd be able to bring myself to put them on, plus I had a style of my own now. I nodded to myself. Moving on was hard, but important and after telling Kaiba he needed do the same I couldn't keep hanging on to the past without becoming a hypocrite. They were just pants, and Yami- I paused and mentally corrected myself; Atem wouldn't have wanted me to dwell on them.

Knuckles smacked against my bedroom door as I reached my decision. "Hey Yug', I'm comin' in - y'decent in there?" Joey called out.

"Yep. Come on in." I folded up the last old t-shirt and the pants. The convenience store bag on my bed crinkled as I added them to it.

"Not doin' anythin' weird with yer socks?" He teased with a killer grin on his face as he poked his head through the door.

"That was one time!" The wording made it sound so perverted!

"Hehe." He shrugged the joke off and stepped into my room with a friendly snicker. There was a dull thump as he dropped his messenger bag on the floor and a spray of resumes slid out.

"I really wish Grandpa hadn't told you about that." I complained halfheartedly, returning his cheesy smile. "I was matching sock pairs to hone my gaming instincts, nothing weird." I explained, again, trying not to go red.

"Suuuuure Yug'" Joey drawled, padding across the floor to flop down on my bed. He stretched out with a contented sigh and then sat back up and shook his fist in the air.

"Man, Tristan better finish up that apprenticeship at his dad's place soon! It's too weird havin' everyone outta town." Yeah it was. With Tristan busy working for his dad, Téa in America and Duke away on vacation it was pretty quiet. "And I need him t'fix my Duel Disk again." Joey added with a huff, sticking out his lower lip to look put out.

I chuckled at him. "You didn't spill more cereal into it did you?" Not again.

"No!" Joey blurted. "Maybe." He pulled a face of deep concentration and scratched his chin. "I dunno" he finished.

"You should really take it off when you eat." Now it was my turn to do the teasing.

Joey rose to it eagerly, waving his arms in the air for comedic effect, "But then how will everyone know I'm a duelist! And if people don't know I'm a duelist I won't ever get scouted fer a sponsorship!"

"Your expecting to be scouted at the breakfast table?" I questioned, quirking my eyebrow and grinning at him. Joey's energy was contagious. It wasn't a surprise he was getting stir-crazy with things as peaceful as they were.

"Y'never know Yug', y'never know." He repeated, stretching out on my bed again nonchalantly. His elbow brushed against the plastic bag and it rustled with the impact. He pulled his arm away to look down at what he'd accidentally started lying on.

"Hey, what's all this?" Two of Joey's fingers hooked around on of the handles to open up the bag for inspection.

"Just some clothes to go to charity." I shrugged, not minding as his attention scattered toward the bag.

"So you wanna head over to the museum tomorrow?" Joey asked as he absentmindedly as he riffled through it. "I heard they're lookin' fer a -". Abruptly he paused, making a curious 'oo'ing sound. He shook out the bag and it felt like a bead of sweat slid down my forehead as I watched all the clothes I'd folded up tumble back onto my bed in a messy pile. "-You donatin' yer leathers? Ain't they like, almost brand new." He dug the pants out of the heap to check them out.

"Uh-huh. But I only ever wore them for dueling so I don't really need them anymore..." I wanted to put dueling behind me and make my own way in the world actually designing games instead of just playing them. I'd made some notes already. Something I could play together with all of my friends sounded fun. Maybe a board game?

Besides, I wasn't the one who'd liked the feeling of light leather, or heavy jewelry, or the sun on my arms. That was all Atem. Having no memory must have been so weird. To not know who you were or what you liked. He'd barely known his own preferences and would never ever have imposed them on me so I'd adopted them for him.

I stared at the pants, probably for too long. Joey cleared his throat as he stowed them back into the bag.

"Y'know if y'ever wanna talk about him I'm right here."

"Yeah..." I nodded, suddenly finding the floor super interesting. Years ago this would be exactly the sort of time Joey would call me a 'wimp' and heckle me, but there was no sign of any of that in his earnest expression when I looked back up. "Thanks, Joey." I quietly added, smiling a little.

He gave me a thumbs up and an enthusiastic wink. "Anytime Yug'. I mean it." And he really did. Joey was the best best friend anyone could ask for.

He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly as a lull in the conversation went on for too long and changed the subject.

"So. Y'heard from Téa?"

I had! I'd texted him about it but he lived in a part of Domino where the coverage wasn't great so he often didn't pick them up.

"She landed a few hours ago." I confirmed. I was just as glad as he was for the change of topic. Téa's messages had been brimming with excitement. I wouldn't see her face to face for a while but her happiness even over text was obvious. "Apparently the flight was pretty boring so she ended up watching movies back to back." I added. She was tired after the flight so the conversation hadn't lasted long but we'd made a promise to try and talk online every Saturday.

Joey snorted. "No kiddin'. Glad that ain't me. Flyin' makes me feel all cooped up and as soon as I get off one I just gotta grab a shower." He shuddered dramatically at the thought and just like that all the weight in the air lifted.

"I think she was too excited about starting her classes to worry about going stir-crazy." The thought of Téa in her ballet leotard danced across my mind. I looked away to hide my blush.

Joey bolted upright on my bed and pumped his arm, suddenly all hyped up too. "We should go see her sometime! Once I get a new job I can start savin' up again."

Wow. That would be great. "Yeah!" My enthusiasm mirrored his, "Téa said there's an end of term production. She was going to video it for us but being there would be so much better!" And it would mean the world to her.

"You bet!" Joey turned to the stack of resumes now strewn about my bedroom floor. "I just gotta hand all'a these out tomorrow and hustle up the dough for the plane ticket."

I nodded vigorously. "I'll start saving too. I was going to start working full time at the shop anyway to give Grandpa a break."

"Cool." He grinned. Those flights weren't cheap so we'd have to work hard but we could do anything we put our hearts into.

I chuckled out loud. Not too long ago we were facing down against monsters and magic and now that we'd graduated from school the biggest obstacle in our lives was just getting together enough money for plane tickets. Life had become so normal, and that wasn't a bad thing, but it was very different. I'd gotten so used to the crazy lifestyle that came with Atem that even after all this time I was still readjusting. Mainly I liked the calm... but sometimes I missed those hectic days of duels and bad guys with all my friends at my back.

I guess Joey was thinking the same thing.

"Man." He sighed, "Everythin's changin' so quick!" It really was. Joey turned back to the grocery bag and frowned at the pants.

"You should keep em' Yug'" He grabbed them from the bag and tossed them at me - the leather material slapped me around the head before I could catch them.

"You really think?" I asked, peeling them off of my face.

"Sure I do." Joey nodded with conviction, the motion making his messy hair fly off in different directions. "Maybe in a few years they'll be like a collector's item and you can sell em' and get rich!"

The idea of selling off Atem's clothes was uncomfortable. "I don't think I'll do that." I replied quickly as I glanced from Joey's sunny expression down to the pants. Maybe I should keep them? The reminder was painful now but what if I regretted getting rid of them five years from now? I could hang onto them until I knew what I wanted to do with them. "...But yeah ok, I'll keep them a bit longer."

"Heh." Joey's smile became a massive grin as I rescued them from the bag. Maybe he needed the reminder of all our adventures with Atem as badly as I did. "Plus you may need em' sometime, y'know. Never know when Kaiba's gonna randomly come sniffin' around fer another duel." He added with a scoff.

"I'm pretty sure that was the last time that's going to happen" I pointed out.

Which probably meant he was out of our lives too now. Between Atem leaving and the duel with Diva we hadn't see or heard anything from either of the Kaiba brothers and I guessed we'd gone back to that status quo again. It was disappointing. I liked the Kaibas - both of them - but they'd always been on the edges of our group and without Atem they'd just drifted away.

I frowned. "I don't think were going to see either of them again." That was a sad thought.

Joey shrugged and scratched at the side of his nose. "Y'know they only live like an hour away, right? Thirty minutes if y'don't have to take the bus."

"Yeah. That's true." But I couldn't imagine just stopping by their mansion and Kaiba casually inviting me in. Wouldn't I just be being mean by reminding him of Atem? He would probably slam the door in my face, or grill me for what I wanted from him and then slam the door in my face.

I sighed. I just didn't 'get' Kaiba the way Atem had. As a duelist he was fairly predicable - always using dragon-heavy beat down or contamination decks all designed around getting his Blue-Eyes onto the field as quickly as possible - but as a person I couldn't read him half as well.

_"Nice to see you too."_

That had been such a weird greeting. He'd said it so sarcastically... but that had become Kaiba's calling card. Get mad, or get sarcastic. It didn't mean there wasn't a bit of truth to it too. Maybe he'd really meant it and I just brushed him off? It would have been nice to see him. If he'd showed up any other time it would have been different, but Bakura had just gone missing.

Not to mention it had been in the pouring rain and while creating a traffic hazard. "He had the worst timing." I sighed to myself.

"Eh, forget about 'im dude. He ain't worth the trouble." Joey retorted.

"I guess." But I wasn't convinced.

"Oh!" Joey held up one finger like he'd just had the best idea and his eyes shone with mischief.

"What?" I asked, confused by the sudden outburst and a little suspicious.

"Now that's who you should sell the pants to!"

What?! "Ew, Joey. Gross!" No way!

Joey burst into a fit of laughter. "Kaiba's such a creep it'd probably werk too!" He guffawed.

I felt myself blush, but didn't know why. Joey was laughing at Kaiba, not me. Probably because even when Atem had been control it was still my body.

"Did you wash em'? Bet he'd pay double if you didn't!" He pressed, waggling his eyebrows at me suggestively before loosing it again and starting to snort between the laughs, which made me laugh too.

"Haha. Ok, ok, please stop." I told Joey, wiping away a tear of amusement. It wasn't fair to let him poke fun. Atem and Kaiba had a complicated friendship. Atem had been all muddled up about it but he'd once described Kaiba to me as 'a valued opponent'. The description was cool, but his feelings had been warmer than that. I hadn't really known what to make of it back when we were together; I still didn't now, but that desperate despairing look on Kaiba's face as Atem failed to appear after slotting the Puzzle back together wouldn't leave me alone.

It made me think that maybe there had been more going than either of them had ever known.

**Seto**

If they bowed any lower, they would merge with the earth itself. That was the only thing keeping my temper at bay.

I could not find peace in stillness, so I paced up and down the line of them, each man tensing as I passed him. Good. No matter who my look-alike was to the Pharaoh he clearly did not belong here, his unsightly garb shone like a star at night. These guards would have to have been blind and deaf not to notice his entry into the palace, so how had he breached the Pharaoh's throne room so carelessly? It was a question I would not allow to go unanswered.

I came to stand in front of the largest of the supplicants. Despite being the captain of the guard, his fearful tone reflected the knowledge that he knew as well as I that there would be little mercy if his answer displeased me.

"We mistook him for you, High Priest."

Mistook him for me? "How?" He was as pale as alabaster and dressed louder than a chorus of buzzards.

"How-" I began again, lowering my voice to a soft, almost friendly hiss and I turned the captain's chin up from the ground with the end of my foot "-do you intend to rectify your grave error of judgment?"

For a man twice my body weight he cowered like a desert mouse. I stomped my foot against him where the thick column of his neck met his shoulder, dropping him back to the floor. Truly, this was the man tasked with keeping the Pharaoh's foes outside the palace gates? His gutlessness disgusted me.

"We assumed it was a spell made to test us, High Priest." he added, the rushed words spilling across the sand like shed blood.

I would have been capable of such a thing, had turning myself milk-colored had any value, yet this guard's assumption was ever unforgivable. He was either a fool grasping for an excuse or a lunatic attempting to test me. The palace guard had no place for either.

"Be gone from my sight." I snarled, jabbing my finger towards the city gates, wishing I was brandishing the Rod instead. The loss of it and its great gifts struck at me like a scorpion's sting. A hand empty of the Millennium Rod felt almost like the hand of a stranger. How many times had I reached for it, moved to run my fingers over its immaculate finish, only to feel its loss again as keenly as the moment the Pharaoh told us the Millennium Items had no place in paradise. Wisely, the now former guard captain neither hesitated or raised his eyes to mine, keeping them to his feet as he hastily complied. His spear lay dormant and discarded as he speedily put as much distance between us possible.

I glared back at the procession of men still kneeling silently before me. Of the nine of them, only one met my gaze. He lifted his eyes to mine warily before realizing I had caught his presumption and looking away again. Fine. That would do. Better to have someone wary and brave than incompetent and cowardly.

"You." I decided.

"Yes, High Priest?" He shouted back, matching my volume and keeping his eyes to himself.

"You are now captain of the guard. Refill your ranks and resume your duties." He inclined his head in understanding. "And let it be known that I do not wish to be disturbed until night has fallen." I added, beholding him bow his head even more deeply in response to my instruction.

"Yes, High Priest-" He repeated. "-It will be so."

Good. I turned my back on the line of cowards and I left them there as I reoriented myself toward my next destination. Anger heated my blood with an ease even the sun itself could not match as I strode forward.

The mimic of me had laughed in my face and then turned his back on me; opening himself to my attack as though I were a sickly mongrel beneath his notice, unable to harm him. He had also named himself a Pharaoh. In fact, he'd said several things I could not believe the Pharaoh had permitted to go unchallenged and then as a final insult he had ignited my temper with a terrible precision.

The Pharaoh spoke to us little of his time in the living world. It was beyond us to pry into the affairs of a living god. Briefly in passing he had told Isis and I of our reincarnations; that hers was just as graceful and noble, that mine was just as tenacious and ambitious. The Pharaoh had not deceived me but as one who had once pulled monsters from the hearts of men I could see that his soul bore the stains of wickedness too. I had expected him to be more like myself from the Pharaoh's account, but instead he was akin to a disturbed reflection in a pool of poisoned water.

Was it his coarse words and impudent sentiments that the Pharaoh had been searching to coax from me on our afternoon walks?

Ridiculous! I was not inferior to this pale imitation and I would not allow Mahad's indolent refusal to strike out against him to be my folly as well. Clearly this 'Seto Kaiba' was of some fleeting amusement to the Pharaoh but if Isis's prediction was to be believed then his intentions were far from harmless. He had dark ambitions for our Pharaoh and I would not permit them to come to pass - especially not with the indentured spirit of Kisara as his weapon of choice!

He had no right to her!

I would free her from his enslavement, and if she was his truest champion as Mahad believed he would easily fall to the Pharaoh once she was no longer bound to heed his call.

My expression was thunderous. No priest approached me as I gathered my instruments and several averted their eyes and scuttled out of my path like rodents scattering under firelight as I marched back through the temple. Even the Hands of the Pharaoh; the most elite of the royal guards, wished nothing to do with me. They merely struck their staves against the floor in respect as I passed by to breech the threshold of the Ceremonial Boulevard and entered the Shrine of Wedju beyond. It was a sacred place, one very few were permitted to step foot in.

The air grew hotter and heavier with each echoed step I took as I departed the world outside with its wind and sunlight for a place of stone gods and demons. I scowled as I beheld what had become of this holy site. The braziers were no longer lit and dust and sand had blown in through the grand entrance to creep across the floor. In the Pharaoh's afterlife summoning Ka was no longer a necessity for the defense or survival of our lands and it seemed the caretakers of the Shrine had grown complacent in light of this. I would reprimand them sternly for their failure to perform their duties. With a rub of my hands against one another and silent incantation the tip of my finger illuminated in a blaze of Dark-Piercing Light. I held my hand out and aloft in front of me as the shining spellcraft lit my passage into the Shrine's utter abyss.

Finally there were no further steps to take.

Something scurried in the void. I did not dwell on it, though the possible progenitors of the sound set my skin crawling. I had come here to find her – to free her – not to allow myself to be distracted my things my eyes could not see.

My fingers trailed the walls of the expansive chamber, beholding for the first time since awakening in the Pharaoh's afterlife the visages of all of the monsters and fiends I had pulled free of their mortal avatars and sealed into stone by the power of the Millennium Rod. Most of these Ka were ugly, wretched things, closer in appearance to the denizens of nightmare than they were the men and women I had extracted them from. They came in every shape and size – each deformed body, twisted face and extra limb a reflection of the horrors of the human heart. They lined the chamber from bottom to top, tablets stacked upon one another as tiles in a wall of monstrosities... yet the creature I sought among the ranks of all others was no foul beast or worthless cur. She was light and strength and beauty incarnate.

She was the same as ever.

Three hundred and nine paces into the chamber moving westward from the entrance, second row from the bottom, exactly as I remembered her when we had sealed the tablets underground. Her stone was warm to my touch, smooth, flawless... She deserved better than imprisonment in this airless tomb among these scum. She deserved a place in the sun with the sky above her, and she certainly deserved liberation from whatever the ill will of my malicious reincarnation demanded.

Come sunset I would break her free from Seto Kaiba's control. As a pleasant consequence the Pharaoh's inevitable victory would come to pass even quicker and our world be rid of his unnatural presence.

I knelt before her, tracing the curving lines of her neck with my fingers and readied my instruments. Despite the fineness of the chert and golden handle my ritual knife still made for a poor substitute to the blade that once slumbered within the Millennium Rod, but I would make do. The reverberating song of the White Dragon echoed in my soul as I began the ritual that would untether her spirit from his.


	6. Chapter 6

**Kaiba**

The sun was setting.

It was low enough in the sky that it couldn't angle its way through the opening above the throne anymore. The rays didn't reach far enough into the room to catch on Atem's jewelry or hair anymore either and that was a relief; the glare from him had been obnoxious. Now it just cast everything into very long shadows.

We'd moved into the end game. This was the crucible of our duels. The last few moments in which he always managed to snatch up victory regardless of everything I hit him with, winning the right to tell me everything that was wrong with myself. As if I needed some dead guy to tell me how to live.

The loss of particulate had made its way all down my body, eating into my shoulders and across my arms. The tips of my boots and fingers had begun to dissolve but I could still feel my digits when I touched them against my thumb. It was... weird. My suit remotely used the Cube's passive energy output to keep me here, but looks like even that wouldn't last forever.

There wasn't enough time.

As we left the mid game behind our movements had been quick but smooth - now they were rushed on both sides, every move declaration hurried. Neither of us wanted to leave this unfinished. A single one of my Blue-Eyes, Castle of Dragon Souls, The Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl made up all that was left on the field. I now recognized the moron from the stairs and the girl who'd climbed into the basket outside.

This was it.

Atem was focused on completing each turn as hastily as possible. Though it was to my benefit I'd never forgive him if he slipped up. I wanted to beat him at his best, not when we were too pressured to play it out properly.

"You better not mess up!" I shouted at him.

Red eyes lifted from his hand, "I was about to tell you the same" He replied easily, smug as ever.

As if.

I'd made sure our life points were equal. Five hundred points each wasn't much to work with. The window in which to use my trump card was closing. After this turn it might be gone for good.

Blue-Eyes snarled eagerly at my side, itching to finish this just like I was. Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon and Deep-Eyes White Dragon might be handy innovations but nothing would ever compare to my signature beast. I had to hand it to Pegasus that the snake really knew how to play the game. Every time Industrial Illusions had a bad quarter he'd put out some new Blue-Eye's themed card that was next to useless in anyone else's deck and sell it to me for a ridiculous profit. It was scheming and I almost respected it.

"Blue-Eyes, destroy the Dark Magician Girl with Burst Stream of Destructio- Arg!"

White hot pain shot through my skull like a missile. Fuck. My fingers massaged my forehead reflexively while every light source in the room suddenly exploded like a super nova.

Atem's victorious expression fell into curious concern in an instant; like I was weak enough to need it. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing" I bit out through gritted teeth, waiting for the photo-sensitivity to pass. That's what I got for traipsing around in a damn desert. It probably just dehydration, or possibly the onset of a mild heatstroke. Nothing I couldn't handle. This wasn't going to take long, I'd have my doctor check me out back in the real world as soon as it was over.

A sudden roar from Blue-Eyes stabbed at my brain.

"Garooooou!"

That wasn't normal. Though there were a few exceptions it generally wasn't programmed to vocalize outside of summoning, de-summoning and attack commencement. I watched it, catching Atem's equally confused look in my peripheral vision.

Something was wrong.

It called out a second time, almost like it was in agony. I'd heard this tone before, when Atem had defiled it by fusing it into the rotting carcass of Mammoth Graveyard. I could feel its pain; it was like I'd been stabbed in the heart. There was a crack... a tiny crack on the left side of its chest quickly creeping outward and across my dragon's body. Pure white light shone out of the wound as it opened up, spreading like ice breaking.

"Blue-Eyes?" My voice sounded small and I hated it.

Had I missed something? Did Atem play a card while I was distracted?

"What did you do?!" I yelled at him. Blue-Eyes' growled quietly as the effect covered its head and stretched out across its wings.

"Nothing. This isn't my doing." He replied firmly. It didn't look like he was lying. In fact he looked just as damn weirded out by this as I was. The card log agreed with him - there was no record of anything being played that could do this.

"Then what-" I didn't even get time to finish my damn sentence.

With a final screaming howl and a flexing of its wings Blue-Eyes... imploded. I couldn't move or blink or even fucking breathe as it shattered into glass and the shards disintegrated in front of my face.

I must have looked like an idiot just staring slack jawed at the gap on the field for the ten seconds it took me to shake it off.

"...tch."

There was a silence.

"I assure you, I had no part in that." Atem frowned.

"Save it!" I snapped. I had no idea what just happened but we didn't have time to stand around and debate it like a pair of morons.

I'd been counting on Blue-Eyes' attack points and any victory without it on the field would be hollow and off-brand, but I could make do.

"I play Silver's Cry to special summon Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon onto the field from my Graveyard." I announced.

With a deep song-like call the dragon was spirited onto the field. I'd decided to discard it to the graveyard to earlier with Dragon Shrine; now I had a new purpose for it.

"And that's not all." I boasted as Castle of Dragon Souls came into effect. "Thanks to my Castle, Red-Eyes gains another seven hundred attack points." And just like that I was back on top. It made me smirk.

"Now, Red-Eyes, devour the Dark Magician Girl!" I commanded, pointing what was left of my finger at the card in question. My Red-Eyes dutifully fried her with its signature blast.

"Finally, I play two cards face down and end my turn." My dragon growled beside me as I did so.

It was finally time to see if Pegasus's little trick would play out.

I called up the holographic keyboard of my Duel Disk, typing to retrieve the photograph I'd uploaded into its memory bank. It flashed up at my command, hovering in the air off to the side so it didn't ruin my view of the battlefield. If Atem was curious about what the hell I was doing then he didn't show it.

If this didn't work then there wasn't going to be another chance. I'd lived my life in death matches of one form or another, playing to win and knowing there would be only one chance given to do so. This time there was a hack to secure more than one attempt at my goal and I'd take it. I wasn't afraid to cheat. It wasn't my preference but I'd realized soon after Atem had died off-screen that I couldn't get on with my life until this was resolved. I couldn't live in any way that mattered. Not in the way Mokuba needed me to.

I turned my eyes on Atem, taking in every single inch of him. Every line in his body, every shade in his eyes, every inhalation and exhalation of breath. He stood completely still under my inspection, meeting it with his own and swallowed thickly enough for me to see from even this distance.

"Are you ready for this to be over?" He asked with a genuine and heavily weighted curiosity, regarding me so intently I briefly wondered if I'd missed something.

"Of course I am! Now stop wasting my time and make your last move!" I shouted.

With a smirk he exhaled slowly and drew his card, as if it was that fucking easy. It would be exactly what he needed to beat me. It always was. He didn't even look at it before slowly moving to put it into play. "This is the end, Kaiba."

Not if I had anything to say about it. In fact, we were just getting started.

I glanced to the holographic display hovering off to the side. The translated white text version flashed up in front of me. Time to see if it worked. I smirked at Atem and hoped the expression was a damn dark one. "I thought I told you this already, we're not done until I say so!"

It was time to start this train-wreck. I ripped my eyes from his face to the projection of the text and read the first line aloud.

"Shah-na'i, mehsoud sou-eie, sah-na'i em pehr-wee -"

I'd memorized what the translation of the tablet said - knew its little hocus pocus chant off by heart by this point. I could read it off the photograph for myself but like hell I'd put my faith in a skill I couldn't quantify the origin of. Understanding the language was an unknown asset; useful, but I wasn't going to take it to the bank and try cashing it in when I had a perfectly bullshit-proof decryption program to fall back on.

Atem looked at me curiously as I pronounced the first words, recognizing they were unfamiliar to him. Then his eyes grew wary.

"Kaiba." Atem warned, stern and sounding in control even as his eyes narrowed. He practically oozed distrust. So much for friendship and faith and all that bull.

"- Sechem, Mecheroud..."

I continued the 'incantation' over him without pausing for a second. I'd wondered if he'd be able to understand it. I didn't look like it from the confusion on his face. I'd done some digging to find it was written in a form of the language exclusively used by ancient Egypt's priesthood. I couldn't say I was surprised. Language was just another tool at the disposal of the ruling caste to widen up that convenient class divide and keep them in lavish palaces and stupid hats. It was probably below the station of the 'Pharaoh' to speak it.

"Ah-ken-ee, Het nebet, sh'sah-ah, mm-chear, rempet-kah_._"

"Whatever your doing stop it now!" He shouted. I glanced up, frowning for a moment.

Neither of us had moved, but his voice sounded far away. I read his lips as much as heard his words. I sneered at him between words and continued. What was this? There was a ringing in my ears and it was becoming harder to breathe. This feeling... I felt like I was draining down onto the floor.

Across the field Atem looked livid and a bit paler than he had before, though of course I still had him beat there. One of my knee-pads thudded loudly against the stone floor. I felt the impact of the bone jarring against the ground before I realized one of my legs had buckled.

I clenched my jaw and whatever else I had left to clench and gritted the sentences out between my teeth. "Hehbah, mehshahree-ankh, neb-em-ta."

"Be silent!" He thundered again, ridiculous hair seeming to stand on end and tremble in rage as I carefully worked my way through the syllables of the last sentence. I wasn't stopping now, even as everything flashed black for a moment. My breath came out unsteadily and darkness was creeping at the corner of my vision. I felt like I'd run a marathon.

The fuck was going on? If reading was supposed to be a lethal sport everyone in Domino except Wheeler would be dead by now. Had Pegasus set me up? Our partnership was beneficial to him, but maybe he figured since I was keen to go knocking on death's door he'd give me a little push through the threshold and snatch up KaibaCorp in the aftermath. That dirty rat was in for another reality-check when I got my hands on him!

"Heh'ga neu, nah-ss sha'ah ehn mehsoud. Sechem, mecherou' hehm-bah."

"I cannot believe you!" Atem was bellowing at me from across the room, sounding as though he was deep underwater. "To deny your past so stubbornly only to beckon it to you with open arms the moment it suits you!" I turned back to look at him, my lungs burning with each inhalation. He was enraged in every sense of the word. His muscles strained as through it took conscious effort not to storm across the duel arena and throttle me, if he could reach.

Figures it would take divine intervention to get him to finally shut up.

A horizontal beam of purple shadows drew itself in the air above our heads, hovering in place between the two of us. Like blood dripping from a wound, a second line of red light dribbled downward from the first before curling at the end into a tight spiral. The horizontal line split and opened.

It was an eye.

The crimson pupil constricted and dilated slightly as it focused in the room and then it turned on me expectantly, ignoring Atem as though he didn't exist. First Obelisk the Tormentor and now this; looks like he wasn't the only one could could summon 'gods'. That was sure to piss him off. Personally, I hadn't thought the little chant would be so damn literal.

I swallowed between gasps and shouted the last line upward to the eye.

"To'khet ramshik nuut-hassat kimbek tel-sah shet!"

_The winner of this game returns to the living world!_

The eye blinked at me. It was impossible to tell if it had understood, or even heard. It was a blasted disembodied floating eye after all. It watched for a long moment before swirling in on itself until it was gone, leaving a face down card behind in its place. In its departure there was an eerie silence.

**Anubis **

The accursed white dragon screeched as the seal was broken.

The beast's hold on me and the blinding light that kept me from escaping its trap loosened as its body shattered outward into pieces. It had kept me broken and bound in this chamber of Seto Kaiba's soul room for what felt like an eternity. Its pestilent song died with it as it vanished into the depths of this hell.

The knowledge that my jailer's death had not come from my own hands filled me with fury even as it aroused my curiosity.

It would seem someone had interceded on my behalf. My benefactor had the wisdom not to make himself known as I gathered the torn shreds of my soul together and liberated myself from the underworld.

As the final stitches knitted my essence into one I became whole once more. My prison had been horrifying. Whatever the origin or cause of this reprieve from its maw, it was irrelevant. I would not be returning to that unspeakable torment ever again. There I had kept my flesh solely so it could be torn away from my bones - felt blood pulse through my veins only so it could be spilled by the teeth and lapped up by the tongues of the eternal beasts that prowled the shadows of Seto Kaiba's soul. There my body had been but another servant of my own agony.

It was disconcerting but not unpleasant to suddenly find myself with an utterly different one.

Without enough life energy to manifest my own body I was but a half-made ghost, bound to that of Seto Kaiba once more. I emerged behind his eyes and studied the grounds upon which my third coming would now begin.

This place. It could not be real.

In the brevity of my second coming I had seen what had become of the modern world through the eyes of my witless host. The glory of gods and magic had been flushed away in a new age of machines that belched filth and noise. No longer did sand and stone tower above men to remind them of the weakness of their flesh, but instead glass and concrete forged a prison of body and soul. The bleakness of that world would be of little concern once I was unleashed upon it once more to sculpt my new era, yet instead of that sickly clamour I now beheld the palace of the Pharaoh of Egypt. I knew it to be an illusion and drew an understanding of this place like blood from a wound.

This was not Egypt. This was not even the living world - merely a lingering echo of an age long buried by time.

It was the imperfect memories of a boy king - a bastardization unique to his own mind. His afterlife was as individual to him as his own scripture and just as easily recognized. People and places crashed against each other in an ugly discordance of misremembered memories and the new born thoughts of a half-grown whelp.

To be trapped here would be little better than within Seto Kaiba's soul room, but the boundary between the world of the living and that of the dead was not as impassable as the foolish priesthood thought to insist. Such concerns were paltry to a necromancer of my skill. Death was mine to command, as was only befitting one who would claim the name and title of the God of Death for himself.

I was stirred from my thoughts, abruptly enraged by the familiar sound of impudent voices.

Seto Kaiba, and the Pharaoh's too.

Those insolent, impudent curs. Those scheming, scuttling wretches. How fateful that the architects of my imprisonment should be the first voices I was to hear upon my return to power.

With each word they spoke my hatred swelled tenfold.

How dare those worms who were fit only to writhe in the dirt beneath my boot scheme their way to defeating me. I would not remain beaten and humiliated by the likes of children with handfuls of playing cards!

Yes, the memory of tasting that last defeat was vile upon my tongue. The Pharaoh had bested me, but he had not acted alone.

Seto Kaiba had aided him, if only by demonstrating himself to be an unreliable and rebellious puppet. Denying my commands in pursuit of his own petty perfectionism had proven to be beginning of my undoing. In his palatable lust to crush the Pharaoh with his own God Cards he had ignored my whispers and had forced me to prematurely emerge from his body to finish the job myself. I needed no pathetic shell of a boy to seize victory, yet he had been a useful tool. It was by this acknowledgement alone that I had severed a sliver of my soul and seeded it deep within his own to lie dormant as a safeguard, lest the Pharaoh conspire a way to turn the tides.

I had watched silently through my host's eyes while the Pharaoh and his entourage battled my true self; as he assumed the form of the great jackal and then I, just like he, was silenced and sealed by their damned white dragon in the aftermath!

Sealed powerless within Seto Kaiba's soul room by that dragon was to be my fate, yet it seemed destiny had favored me once more. It continued to so do as I grew attentive to Pharaoh's words and the poorly pronounced incantation Seto Kaiba was casting upon them.

"_Preside as audience, upon this, my conflict of ceremony."_

_"Whatever you're doing stop it now, Kaiba!"_

_"Officiate my terms and grant my wish!"_

_"Be silent!"_

_"The winner of this game returns to the living world!_

Mwhahahahaha!

How the meddlesome rat had come to be in the Pharaoh's afterlife did not matter! It was truly the will of the Gods that I should be searching for a way to leave this world in the same moment my hapless host was casting a spell to secure a return to life.

All it would take was the Pharaoh's defeat! A goal I relished.

My spirit strode through the depths of my host's soul room, ripping open and letting loose whatever other evils he had sought to imprison in here as he had me. I was unimpressed that despite Seto Kaiba's lofty man-made magics it seemed he as was only capable of perceiving anything was amiss as I came close enough to the surface of his mind to possess his limbs. A mere wretch of a sorcerer. He turned sharply to glare behind him as I ghosted my essence across his senses. It was both practical and poetic to take this body. The reincarnation of the same body that my traitorous co-conspirator, Anknadin, had been so eager to see sit upon the throne of Egypt that he had betrayed me to assure it.

A body for a body.

Pale hands with bony knuckles and not a single callus or blemish stretched out in front of me as I flexed Seto Kaiba's fingers.

He noticed this small manipulation and straightened out the digits immediately. His petulance was as amusing as it was worthless. This host had no training for sustaining conventional sorcery, yet he had much fresh grief and anger and bitterness; fertile dark emotions from which to regrow the base of my necrotic magic. He would come to regret his part in the destruction of my Pyramid of Light once I took his whole soul in recompense. I laughed at him, tapping into every damaged, despairing feeling at his core and stirring it into a tool of my own retribution.

With the Blue Eyes Shining Dragon vanquished this was all I would need to set into motion the third coming of Anubis, Lord of the Dead. I would have my revenge and I would not be denied again.

**Kaiba**

I commanded the face down card to activate through my neural uplink and it refused. The giant eye had looked flashy but since adding itself to the field it had done absolutely nothing except take up space. I guess that figured since it was the result of one of Pegasus's schemes. It floated off to one side completely useless to me. I didn't care, so long as it did what it was supposed to it could hover over there all the live-long day.

"Well, that was anticlimactic." I mocked.

I felt weird. The migraine was getting worse. I was starting to feel nauseous and irritated - like something was crawling around under my skin.

Atem glared daggers at me. Guess brightening the mood wasn't going to happen. Not like that had ever been my specialty anyway. My specialty was **crushing my enemies into dust** and it was time to time to get back to doing what I was good at.

"Kaiba!" His voice was irritated and chiding and even worse had this undercurrent of concern running through it. "What have you done?"

I smirked at him. "Oh you'll see, Pharaoh. Now, shut up and finish the duel."

He scowled back at me. "You belligerent oaf! Something is wrong here!" Guess his ancient Egyptian spidey senses were telling him something was up but couldn't nail down just what. Whatever! I'd started this so I'd finish it! "I demand you tell me."

"Never!" **"Never!" **I spat, wincing as the lights in the room throbbed in time with my headache. The less he knew the better until our duel was done and he was back in the real world.

"Whatever you have done it has gone awry. Tell me. I will help you!"

Him, help me? Please. If he had any idea what I'd been trying to do then he wouldn't even offer it. Hell, if he knew what I'd done he'd probably never even look at me again.

"Save it for someone who cares" I mocked. All of his anger was better than a single speck of his worry and besides that it felt good to be the one making all the smug pronouncements for once. "Now pick a lane Pharaoh, either get angry or shut up because I don't need your concern!" What I needed was for him to finish this duel.

My fingers flexed in anticipation of my next turn, bending the holographic projections of the cards in my hand. I hadn't meant them to do that. It took actual effort to uncoil them, they felt strangely numb.

**Tell him. Behold his expression as he learns of his fate.**

"You really have no idea what I just did, do you?" I taunted, enjoying the way his eyes narrowed at me and his eyebrows arched. "Thanks to me, the winner of this little duel will be returning to the real world." I paused for effect, watching the implication of that sink in and his expression turn dire as a thunderstorm. "You're welcome." I added, smirking.

All signs of comradery flew the coup as Atem's whole body tensed with rage. "This is how you plan to finally beat me? To force me into conceding?" Actually no, though I'd be lying if I said the thought hadn't occurred to me - but winning that way wouldn't have counted for anything.

"Your actions are beyond words! This defies even my wildest underestimation of you!" He glanced at his Duel Disk, the exact spot he'd need to place his hand on to surrender and forfeit the duel.

"Don't you dare!" I hissed. "What happened to 'I've never backed down from a challenge, Kaiba, and I'm not starting now" I jeered, I didn't know if he'd recall those words. His eyes narrowed as he gritted his teeth; looks like he did. The last time he'd spoken them to me we'd been at the top of Pegasus's castle and I'd been one step away from going over the edge. His answer then had been to condemn me to death. I'd have done the same had the roles been reversed. Wonder what it was going to be this time.

**Mwhaha.**

A deep laugh set my teeth on edge. It was like all the noise in the world was being incrementally sucked up into a vacuum, yet this mocking bullshit was as clear as surround sound. The hell was it coming from?

It didn't matter.

I wouldn't let it distract me!

"Take your turn, **my Pharaoh."** I pressed.

He looked at me strangely, his pained sneer turning suspicious and calculating and then drew, swiping the card from the holographic generator. He didn't even bother looking at it. "I pass." He growled through his teeth. For once he looked like he was in just as much agony as I was.

"Then it's my turn." I drew Deep-Eyes. Funny. One turn earlier and he would have won but with this card I could actually come out the victor now. I could finish this the right way. The only way I knew how – the only way Gozaburo had taught me to; pulverize him with my Deep-Eyes **and plunge a dagger through his chest.**

**Just like he had done to me! **A wound for a wound. **A life for a life**.

As if. Winning like that would be meaningless.

"I pass too." I grunted.

"What game are you playing?" The Pharaoh demanded. He looked livid. Guess he was expecting me to finish him now that he'd given up the fight. Sucks to be him because that hadn't ever been my goal – this deck was designed to do one thing, to force only one outcome… But I needed him to attack me first.

This couldn't end until he played it out. Maybe it was time to stop pushing buttons **and destroy him.**

"Atem."

I commanded the full intensity of his attention instantly, his blood red eyes meeting mine like lasers. I'd never used his name before. It felt strange to say it out loud. I didn't bother to shout anymore – riling him up hadn't worked out and wouldn't help me if he was just going to keep passing turns.

How do you make someone else understand something you yourself don't?

I needed him to do this. Needed it so badly, to feel relief from the cosmic toothache he'd given me – this dull constant aching irritation.

"I need this done" I simply told him.

**Bury his body just as he buried your pride! Cut a scar so deep that it bleeds him dry!**

He was a tooth I needed pulled.

That crimson stare shifted, pinched eyes and furrowed brow loosening up a bit. "So make your move" I finished with.

He didn't move or breathe or even blink for what felt like an age and then almost imperceptibly he nodded. His tone was level and calm once more. "Very well. I trust you." I wish he hadn't said that because he was going to regret it.

**Finish it, finish this pathetic game and then rip out his spine!  
**

Wait. What?

**Better yet. I shall finish it for you!**

I'd let the other murderous whispers of the last few minutes go by unchecked since they hadn't been that foreign. There was a part of me that would never get rid of them completely - Gozaburo had seen to that - but that last one was definitely alien. I'd been through this enough times before to notice when someone was trying to put thoughts in my head. This was more literal than I was used to.

_"Identify yourself!"_ I snapped back at the voice that was most definitely echoing around my own skull. It sounded familiar. I wanted him to confirm it though.

**Witless mortal maggot. Are you so foolish not to recognize my presence?**

"Hn!" A searing pain in my head gave me the worst migraine of my life. For a second I thought I'd been shot. My fucking brain was on fire. It felt like there was a hand squeezing it tighter and tighter and tighter. Was I having a stroke?

**Mwhahahaha! No, whelp. This will be much much worse for you than that. **

My stomach clenched as bile rushed up into my mouth. I swallowed it back down. It tasted rancid.

**Feel honored to once more be host to Anubis, Lord of the Dead.**

Oof, this guy again.

Atem was silently studying me so of course he must have caught my little internal monologue. It was probably a weird pause to him.

"Tch! Get on with it then." I snapped at him, fighting back the urge to flinch or gag as something deep down inside of me turned putrid. It was like every agonizing year, like every 'lesson' Gozaburo had ever taught me had been combined into a crash course and forced back down my throat as one festering lump. The feeling sank down to the pit of my stomach like a lead weight.

"Alright." He nodded to me, his tone level and focused with none of his earlier outrage. "Here I go, Kaiba."

"Good." I struggled out. Convincing him was a relief, despite the gross feeling his 'trust' in me elicited. My uninvited guest was getting too insistent for comfort. I could feel him poking holes in my brain, opening up doors and moving around the furniture. My head was gonna explode if this kept up.

Dexterous fingers slapped the card he'd drawn a few turns ago onto his Duel Disk. "I activate the magic card Dark Magic Expanded, causing my Dark Magician's attack power to raise by one thousand points until the end of this turn."

Gaining those attack points gave his magician the edge against my dragon. So this would have been the answer without Pegasus's cheat card? Another loss? The face down cards I'd saved might give me a 'win', but it would still be a defeat by any metric that mattered.

He leveled his hand at my Blue-Eyes, bracelet flashing with the reflection of the sun as he did so. "Dark Magic Attack!"

The Magician twirled his staff cockily and lifted it upwards.

It was time.

My fingers darted to Deep-Eyes without my permission. It took conscious effort to pull them away.

**Crush him!**

"I activate Green Medicine." I roared, shouting over the voice in my head.

The card had been released last summer so it was hardly new, but since dead kings didn't keep up with current events I explained how it worked out loud. "Green Medicine enables me to sacrifice a monster on my side of the field to boost both of our life points by the value of its attack points for one turn." I didn't want to do this but I was going to. I'd played the whole damn game **like a coward** hording life points for just this one turn. I scowled and forced myself to nod to my Red-Eyes, the dragon's head dipping dutifully in reply as it was sacrificed away to restore both of our life points to three thousand five hundred. That alone tasted bitter.

"No! Stop, you fool!"

"Now I activate my trap card!" I yelled, my hoarse shout barely managing to eclipse Atem's own. "Ring of Destruction! Using this card, we both take damage to our life points equal to the attack power of your 'roided up Dark Magician-"

Forcing a tie was vile. I felt physically sick - but by the rules of Duel Monsters a tie was a victory for both sides.

"-And that drops both of us to zero simultaneously!"

This way we could duel again in the real world and really sort this once and for all without time constraints or interruptions. If he was so desperate to skip back off to the afterlife when I'd finished with him then **I would kill him ****myself!** I'm sure there was one of those KC-branded white revolvers from the old KaibaCorp kicking around in a briefcase somewhere that he could borrow to get the job done.

The life point counter obliged me and my headache pulsed in time to the number counter as the digits reached zero.

The face down card I'd 'conjured' into existence still levitated off to the side face down and that surprised me. It should have activated by now. The holograms began to slip away as they were programmed to do at the end of a duel but then stopped and each played their 'remove from play' animation instead. It had to be a bug. I'd fix it once we were both back in the real world.

I pushed up against the floor to stand straight. Every muscle in my legs strained at the effort.

"KAIBA!" I didn't even have time to react to the blow.

Atem charged across the distance between us to punch me in the face so hard it staggered me back to the floor. He caught me off-guard. I'd never really though of him as a 'punch you in the face' sort of guy.

He radiated anger as a near physical aura as I caught my footing and glanced back at him, holding my jaw. I tasted iron. My teeth had cut open my cheek. I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth, not surprised by the streak of blood but grossed out by the trail of thick black sludge that was mixed in with it. That wasn't normal, but I didn't have time to deal with it if Atem wanted to settle this with fists. Apparently we'd moved into a more immediate way to fight.

I glanced at Atem through narrow eyes, barely able to see him somehow.

Far from being poised for a punch-up, he was stood spine stiff and shaking with fury. He looked like he was going to detonate.

"A tie may be considered a win for both sides in Duel Monsters, but it's a loss here!" he bellowed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Atem**

In a card game thousands of years into the future, dueling was a hobby. Here in this world magicians had battled not trading cards, but real monsters. A loss was a death - the sorcerer ripped apart by enemy behemoths or his soul exhausted beyond repair. A tie was the death of both combatants. It seemed Kaiba had ignored that fact in his petty crusade for revenge.

"You stubborn, arrogant -" I was shouting at him, but Kaiba wasn't listening.

He knelt stiff and still in front of me panting slightly with eyes blankly staring at nothing, processing information like one of his computers. He gritted his teeth, raised a hand to his temple and winced. Willful ignorance aside, even he should have known better than this!

"-fool. You haven't changed at all!" Earlier that had been a fond observation, now it was as damning an accusation as my tone could make it. "Once again you've spat your life in the face of the Gods and this time they have finally grown tired of your persistent recklessness!"

Kaiba had never been hesitant about getting what he wanted, but to go to this length. To try to forcibly eject me from my own paradise. I almost wished there was some shadowy manipulator pulling his strings and compelling this wanton foolishness but I could taste that this was a plot of his own shortsighted creation.

"You have abused my trust and our friendship!"

When he'd started the spell I had been shamefully curious. To have Kaiba here in my world, speaking in my tongue without hesitation or manipulation, then only to realize that the words he was speaking were shielded from my understanding. That stoked my rage. It was a fire that burned only hotter as the belligerent fool actually managed to successfully summon whatever it was he was beseeching.

"And for what?" I raged. "To steal me from my own afterlife?"

Like shouting over a sandstorm, it was impossible to tell if Kaiba was hearing me until he grimaced faintly at my last words. It seemed that was exactly what he had planned. How dare he.

"You are blind to everything but your own selfish desires!" The tirade gave me focus. A muscle jumped in his now-bruised cheek and very slowly his dazed stare drifted across the room to meet mine. "I vow to you here and now, I will never forgive this." His pupils constricted strangely at those words even as he wearily kept my gaze, as though resigning himself to the fate of listening to me. Was I just another obligation to be met to him!

He resembled Seto in this moment, kneeling in front of me with his head bowed slightly just as my priest had done earlier in the day. Unlike Seto I found the sight of Kaiba in the same position slightly repellent, though he certainly deserved this. He had dug his own grave and matched headlong into it. Again!

"Get up, Kaiba." I demanded, closing my hand around his left arm and wrenching him back onto his feet. Yugi's body had strength, but it was the thready brawn of a young man who did not participate in many sports. Here my body was my own and was made powerful by the daily rigors of this lifestyle. I could man-handle Kaiba without any difficulty. I ignored the flinch of Kaiba's muscles and his hiss of breath as I tightened my grip on him.

Though the duel had ended in a draw, we both knew this was no victory and I wouldn't allow him the luxury of one of his post-defeat conniptions. There was no way Seto Kaiba would ever accept a tie. Trying to force one was utterly contrary to every personal philosophy he had ever angrily spat at me across the battlefield that it had shielded his strategy from my suspicions. Kaiba was a warrior and I had never considered him possible of aiming for anything less than a total victory.

He grunted as I pulled on him and stood staring dully at his arm where I held it. He swallowed thickly, grimacing as he did so. He wore his silence like an armor, or had nothing to say for himself. I was surprised he had yet to open his mouth and spill inane words into the air to defend against my reprimand or the pride lost from this ridiculous farce. I was pleased that he knew to keep to himself for once. If the planets were in alignment, snow fell thick upon the desert and the sun was rising in the west, perhaps there was hope that his silence reflected contrition.

"You dueled so differently today I made the mistake of thinking you'd grown, but I you've proven me wrong." I announced without taking my eyes away from his. "This time you thought you could overpower me by aiming _not_ to win?". I shook my head in frustration. Why could he not get this right? Time and time again I had watched Kaiba struggle and persevere only to make the same mistakes over and over. "Am I right to assume you have no intention of apologizing?" I demanded.

His mouth opened once more but he said nothing and closed it again, quickly covering it with his hand. I had thought Kaiba was looking pale before, but with every second more color leached out of his complexion. Just what had he done to himself?

Tethered to me as he was, I gave him no choice but to follow my lead as I took a step with the intent to march us out of the throne room and down one of the connecting passageways. The sun had just set. My priests would be finishing their prayers in the temple. If anyone could shed light on this spell it would be them. I doubted even Kaiba knew fully and he didn't seem capable of speech right now. Kaiba staggered slightly and tried to snatch his arm out of my grasp so I switched my grip to his wrist instead. I could feel the nervous pounding of his pulse beneath the pads of my fingers. That didn't feel right.

"I-" He began, before snapping his lips shut and turning his face away. "Get off me." He slurred. He tried once more to free himself and put distance between us, the movement this time jerky and uncoordinated. I frowned. Kaiba's movements were rarely anything other than composed.

"Kaiba?" I questioned, irritated and cautious.

He leaned his head forward slightly to shield his eyes beneath his hair. With one hand sealed over his mouth he used the other to push me away from him as he bent double and silently retched.

"What the-" I stepped backwards, opening up the distance between us.

Kaiba pressed both of his hands to his mouth with enough pressure to turn his knuckles white as his body convulsed in another dry heave. And another. And another.

His sudden sickness caught me off guard, drying out the rest of the furious words in my throat until no trace of them remained, like a puddle beneath the desert sun. I froze, caught between conflicting instincts in an unfamiliar situation.

Illness or injury I had always left to Yugi to field. Should I approach, or leave Kaiba be? I could hardly imagine he'd appreciate me witnessing this. Just what sort of spell had he cast? He took a gasping breath between his gags and grunted or mumbled something I couldn't hear as he shied away from me. I could sense it now. Whatever he had evoked, it had tapped into the life energy of his body to corrupt it to some nefarious end.

A strangled groan was the only warning given before finally he leaned down to brace his hands against his knees and vomited in earnest, a pool of dark black sludge splattering onto the floor between Kaiba's feet and a dribble of it oozing down his chin.

The puddle of grime stank of rot and grave soil. I recognized this particular strain of vile necromantic magic immediately.

I covered my nose to shield it from the stench of decay as Kaiba's body straightened, unfettered hate leering back at me from behind Kaiba's eyes. The quaking of his body released and his lips cut into a sadistic grin. A malicious laughter slowly bubbled from his mouth with a few more streams of thick tar. "You have interfered with my plans for the last time." he muttered to himself before laughing loudly.

This was not Kaiba.

He wasted no time in pressing the momentary advantage of my shock. A dripping black knife both solid and liquid rushed upwards from the sludge Kaiba's body had expelled and was crushed in the grip of his hand.

"Watch out!"

In a whirl of deep blue my High Priest lunged forward from the throne room shadows to repel the strike. His dagger collided against my attacker's - slicing through the necrotic blade with a slick wet noise to disarm Kaiba as the magical weapon parted and splattered back onto the floor to rejoin the rest of the pool.

In tandem we both jumped backwards to put distance between us and our foe, very much treating him like the dog at bay he so resembled.

"Anubis." I noted.

His smirk was as sharp and menacing as his blade had been. No doubt it reflected the depth of his desire to cut me down and spill my blood. He pulled Kaiba's face into a mad, hellish grin, the expression little more than a bearing of perfect white teeth now stained gray by gore.

At our last meeting when I had battled him through Yugi's body my memories had still escaped me, now my recollection of the fallen priest was as sharp and accurate as an arrowhead. This was no minor villain. How he was here now I didn't know, though most likely the result of whatever foolishness Kaiba had set in motion. It mattered little; I would not allow the sorcerer to intrude in his body.

"Your timing is as precise as ever." I grinned as I turned to my defender. I hadn't even noticed him return to the room but in retrospect his reappearance was inevitable. I should have anticipated that ordering him to leave so that I may duel Kaiba in private was an imperfect strategy. My wish would only be observed for as long as it took Seto to grow impatient and slip back into the throne room.

Still locked in the pose of his last riposte Seto stared wide-eyed at Kaiba as dark tar oozed from his lips. The whites of Seto's eyes gleamed brightly in the fading daylight as he beheld his reincarnation. He looked panicked.

"This- this was not meant to happen!" He shouted at Kaiba's body angrily, as though upset with his lookalike for being possessed. Kaiba's captured face remained a foul sneer, though my own grew tight with suspicion at the vague implication in Seto's words.

"So it is you who destroyed the White Dragon that bound me then, is it High Priest?" Anubis laughed deeply and terribly. "You have my thanks."

"You did what?!" I demanded, the volume of my voice echoing around the room. Seto gritted his teeth against my fury.

The Gods were truly testing me today to poise me against not only Kaiba's wanton abuse of magic, but now Seto's too! They were certainly not identical but it seemed in this both their thoughts and poor intentions had aligned perfectly! To calamitous ill-effect no less!

"Why have you done this? Tell me!" I commanded. Unlike Kaiba who was ever eager to face my ire and defy it Seto knew better and complied quickly with harsh chipped words.

"To free Kisara. I could not allow her to remain his slave!" He bit out, glaring at Kaiba's body resentfully.

That's what this was about? Their Dragon? "She is no 'slave'." I parried back quickly. "She serves Kaiba willingly, and the choice to do so is hers to make."

The details of Anubis's reappearance fell into place. I had sealed him before with the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon - another of Kisara's Duel Monster incarnations. Seto had unwittingly dispelled the binding in attempting to 'free' her spirit from Kaiba's.

"I am sorry, my Pharaoh." Seto announced with conviction, prideful as ever but clearly finding no pleasure in my discontent. "This was not my intent." Guilt shone in his eyes and abruptly he looked so much younger than Kaiba.

"We will speak at length of this later." I spared Seto a final look and then returned my focus to our foe. Seto's intentions had hardly been benign but he couldn't have known that this would occur in the aftermath. "However, we will rectify it here and now." I answered shortly.

"I-" my High Priest's reply was cut off as he yelled out "-Hrngh!". With a forward thrust of Kaiba's hand Seto was blasted away by a wave of filth, the heavy sludge throwing him against the wall like a child's plaything. There was a loud crack as his head jarred worryingly against the wall to render him unconscious, a smear of his blood staining the stones as he slid down to fold onto the floor.

"Seto!" I called out. He didn't stir. It seemed he had been removed from play and at the sight Anubis's mocking snicker began anew.

"Enough of his prattle." He clenched and loosened Kaiba's fists, testing the muscles of his hands before experimentally flexing Kaiba's arms. "Once more destiny bids the two of us to do battle, my Pharaoh." He scoffed as the stolen biceps tensed and relaxed at his command. "Pathetic." He commented. "Yet I will make do for the chance to bury you with the rest of the worms!" Two voices echoed with each word, Anubis's growing in volume with each sentence as Kaiba's receded into the background.

Anubis had made a grave error of judgment in returning. I would put him in his place once more!

"Kaiba!" I shouted as Anubis chortled "Awaken and cast out this invader."

Anubis's grim chuckle exploded into a scornful laugh, echoing around my throne room in a malevolent mockery. Abruptly his stolen eyes slid across the room, as though listening to something out of sight. "Pathetic mortal-" He taunted, speaking either to me or Kaiba, or both. It was uncertain. The feral blue leer snapped back to me, whatever unseen rebellion had been occurring in his moment of distraction appearing to be quashed as quickly as it had been mounted. "- I will enjoy slowly crushing his spirit" he assured me. He was mistaken; I would never allow it. "For now I have sealed him away just as you did me, my Pharaoh!" he boasted, "He can hear you no longer."

I frowned and nodded to Anubis firmly, hoping that Kaiba was watching somewhere behind his eyes. "Leave it to me" I told him. "I'll return your body to you quickly."

Anubis contorted Kaiba's grin to be impossibly wider, his thirst for vengeance and blood shining in his Kaiba's glare like a terrible promise. Good. Let Anubis fixate on me. Clearly it had prevented him from realizing the middle finger on Kaiba's left had was twitching against his will.

"I think not. This body may not be as finely tuned to the mystic arts as the last one you battled, but his very life force will serve my purposes just as well!" My foe barked, black spittle flying from his lips as fresh sludge welled up in the corners of his mouth. Rapidly building death magic overwhelmed my senses with its malicious aura. Anubis threw Kaiba's arms out and the thick expulsion he had vomited across the tiles of my throne room exploded to life in a mass of slimy tendrils and rot.

"I believe you have met my Sphinxes before" he jeered. The mound of writhing ooze parted, splitting down the middle like a Revival Jam and each reformed into bubbling, malformed bodies.

In our last battle the Pyramid of Light had acted akin to a Millennium Item – bolstering Anubis's natural aptitude for magic – this time he drew from Kaiba's own body, his host's skin becoming ashen and thin at it struggled to meet Anubis's demands for its power. Such a vile, dangerous sorcery! It had been outlawed for just this reason. Kaiba's body would need to be liberated before Anubis squeezed the life from it.

Limited by the underdeveloped magic of his current vessel, Kaiba's stunted capacity for magic stifled the summoning of his two sphinx. They had been remade into the form of Duel Monsters last time -graceful, strong and deadly- now instead the two dripped onto the floor as half-formed tar abominations festering in the center of the room and turning the air squalid and sour. Andro Sphinx's leonine head popped like a bubble and collapsed in on itself with a wet squelch as the bestial lower half of Sphinx Teleia attempted a step toward me and partially fell apart in a shower of grime. I raised my hand to my mouth, not letting a single speck touch me behind the shelter of my cape.

Anubis scowled at his malformed servants. "Curse this wretch!' he snarled, digging Kaiba's nails into his palms so deeply they sliced open.

Unlike the body Anubis had stolen I was not so similarly hindered. "I'll exorcise you from existence once and for all!" I decreed.

Golden energy swelled at my command, exploding outward from me in an elating wave of release. With fingers outstretched I thrust my hand toward Anubis, channeling the breadth of my occult abilities into the evil that dared claim Kaiba's body for his own. The sloshing remains of his Andro Sphinx contorted in on themselves and then burst upward to create a soaking black wall between my blast and Anubis himself. It melted beneath my will and the force of my attack careened towards the necromancer.

With a maniacal laugh that chilled my bones he coiled Kaiba's arms and pulled the duelist's life force out of Kaiba's body into a make-shift shield. Kaiba's ghostly essence appeared in front of him as a pool of clear water sculpted into his shape and struggled angrily, trapped in place to protect Anubis from my strike.

"Oh no!"

There was no time to call back my powers as they assaulted the avatar of Kaiba's life force. I couldn't make out his facial features, but the body language of the projection spoke volumes for Kaiba's pain as my magic ran rampant through him to shock him like lightning. The astral projection slumped in the aftermath of my blow, fading back into Kaiba's being, the damage to it visibly draining him and causing his body to waver on its feet for a moment. Despite weakening his host Anubis's glee roared only louder as his defensive play set me at a loss for how to proceed.

Kaiba's body began to shake as Anubis taxed it beyond its limits. This was no laughing matter.

If I moved to use my own sorcery to expel the necromancer once more I could very well do more harm than good to Kaiba and without the Puzzle's powers it was more difficult to temper my magic. I could easily irreparable damage him by accident.

My hesitation to attack gave Anubis the chance to press his advantage. "Teleia – recover your true form by devouring the Pharaoh!" he ordered. The cat-shaped bile beast hungrily gurgled out a screech through it's melting jaw and pounced. It's liquid paw slammed a crushing blow toward me that shattered the stones beneath my feet. I dodged to the side, far more agile than these sickly monsters.

Yet their advanced state of decay it seemed had merits as well as flaws.

The monster's claw reformed in mid-strike as droplets of muck still flying through the air in an arc above me spirited themselves back into a single fetid mass. A second blow was levied toward me quicker than I could regain my footing from dodging the last. I narrowed my eyes quickly as a familiar spell formed a burst of intense light that blinded and repelled the Sphinx from landing its attack; a second attack joined it to blast Sphinx Teleia backwards and away from me in an explosion of burning purple magic, causing her to scream in agonized fury. I turned and nodded to my comrades, needing nothing else to recognize Isis's Luminous Spark spell and Mahad and Mana's timely intervention with Dark Magic Twin Burst. The writhing mass of Sphinx Teleia gurgled pitiably and then drained back into the floor as a festering puddle, defeated.

"Thank you, my friends."

Mahad inclined his head dutifully, trailing his gaze over Seto's prone body to assess him before turning his eyes upon our foe. Mana's aura was tense as she stood at her master's side. Her eyes looked troubled and she was knotting a finger in her hair. It was a thoughtless habit that betrayed her anxiety. "What sort of sorcery is this?" she questioned, her eyes tracking every movement of Kaiba's body. She swallowed nervously and then the steadfast determination that had urged Mahad take her as his learner bloomed once more in her eyes. Good.

"Necromancy." Mahad observed, his tone thick with distaste, "A forbidden art."

At Mahad's back Isis stood poised and cautious, one of her hands habitually darting to the space atop her clavicle, the other outstretched toward me. Her nose wrinkled as the odious smell of death permeated the surroundings."Forbidden?" Mana questioned, briefly glancing between the priest and priestess.

Mahad's eyes only narrowed and he nodded to Isis, the two communicating a message that went unspoken. "It is outlawed; for all whom a necromancer raises from death are bound to his will evermore." Isis warned, smoothing down the layers of her robe beneath the golden bands that pinched her waist. "Even the mightiest become mere thralls locked into servitude if raised from the grave by such magic."

She gasped as Anubis's assault began anew, wrapping a barrier of magic around the four of us as a wave of necrotic mud exploded across my throne room. It splattered in wet lumps across the sphere of pale spellcraft that protected us. Her swift conjuration of Mirror Force was impressive.

Mana peered up at a chunk of rot that slid down the shield before her eyes and was then quickly repelled away.

"Do not touch it." Mahad cautioned her urgently; natural curiosity drawing her toward the unknown magical mixture like a moth to a flame.

"Do not permit it to enter your body, lest you come under its sway." Isis added, recognizing as I did the exact nature of the foul concoction.

The councilors at my side filled me with renewed determination, the stalwart solidarity of their friendship strengthening me just as my friends in Domino once had. It was time to finish this.

"Surrender and leave Kaiba's body, Anubis. You're outnumbered" I declared.

For the first time since the beginning of this sordid encounter Anubis's crazed grin fell away into a murderous scowl, a little more black bile leaking out between Kaiba's teeth as he gritted them like a vice. His taunting grew in venom even as it decreased in volume. "Such matters not, for unlike you I am willing to reduce this mortal maggot to but a withering husk if I must." He stretched out Kaiba's arms once more, as though to beckon me into a deadly embrace. "Take your shot, Pharaoh" he invited in Kaiba's voice. "Slit my throat with your magic."

The underhanded pantomime aroused all of my ire.

Mahad and Isis exchanged glances, waiting for my signal to attack. I was struck silent by indecision, my drive to punish Anubis for his horrid performance breaking like a wave against the need to protect Kaiba's body from sustaining further harm. Damn his bluff. I could not risk it. Not again.

He abandoned Kaiba's voice once more with a patronizing roar of laughter. "Mwhahaha. As I thought. Now my sphinxes!"

The melted remains of Sphinx Teleia surged forward to splatter their full weight against Isis.

"Isis!" Mana squealed. Sprinting toward the priestess Mana planted her feet and with a swing of her arm volleyed the most powerful Dark Burning Attack I had ever seen. The air crackled with her power as the orb swept though the air to pull apart what little remained of Teleia completely. From the corner of my eye I saw pride in his student heat Mahad's stern expression, the warmth of it touching his eyes despite the weight of our current battle. I was privileged to have the loyalty of my Magicians.

"Thank you, Mana." Isis replied with a demure smile. Mana twirled her staff in her hand and tossed a wink at us over her shoulder, "No problem, I've got this!"

"Think again." Anubis's dark voice interrupted. The flayed fragments of Teleia scattered by Mana's attack gravitated toward each other at great speed and swirled together. There wasn't time to react. Isis pulled Mana against her in a protective embrace as the reformed sludge shot toward the two women as swiftly as striking snakes, sweeping the pair from their feet and covering their whole bodies with a thick layer of sludge as the living ooze pinned them to the wall of my throne room.

Beneath the layers Isis thrashed for a moment - the motion so contrary to her usual grace - before going limp.

"No! Mana! Isis!"

I could not allow my friends to fall. I was their Pharaoh; their living god; the very arbiter of this world! My priests and priestess had waited thousands of years for me and I would not allow anyone to take my friends away.

Mahad took a startled step towards them and then stilled; my guardian was unable to leave my side by the nature of his duties. He watched them struggle in place beneath the mass of filth with a solemn expression on his face, caught between instinct and obligation. Mana was his beloved apprentice and I was coming to suspect he had feelings for Isis, and she had the same feelings for him. It was subtle; muted beneath their dignity and poise and given away only by one lingering glance too many or one word too few. It was something I hadn't recalled noticing in life.

"Go. Help them" I bid him urgently. I didn't have much experience with romance outside of Yugi's feelings for Téa, but I could understand that this was of grave importance to Mahad. "I shall be fine." I assured him. Mahad's conflicted expression cleared and he nodded to me in gratitude.

Our combined lapse in focus gave Andro Sphinx his own window of opportunity; there was little more than a bluster of wind and rotting flesh as its unstable body rushed toward us, opening up into a blanket of necrotic filth to trap me.

"My Pharaoh!" Mahad shouted, pushing me away at the last moment given to be enveloped in my place. Immobilized in the heavy roll of the monster's body my champion was dragged to the ground to lie immobile against the tiles and ooze. I sprinted to his side, digging my fingers into layer upon layer of decay to pull the muck away from Mahad's face, but the more I pulled free the quicker the remaining doubled-down to flood his nose and mouth.

How could this be?

I pulled my hands away, staring at my palms in dismay as the mixture fruitlessly oozed between my fingers. Now many lives hung in the balance. Anubis would pay for his transgressions! I turned my eyes back on Kaiba's body as it quivered from the strain of Anubis's sorcery. A single blow from my magic may very well end his life. I did not know how to proceed... but as Yugi had taught me, with faith in one's friends there is no such thing as fighting alone.

"Kaiba, hear me." I shouted, Anubis's eyes narrowing in mirth as I beseeched the owner of his body once more. "He is using your life as a shield. I cannot defeat him without harming you." I paused, searching the face of my rival for any indication he was hearing my words. I found none there, but once more my focus on his eyes prevented Anubis from realizing the realizing the twitching muscles of his left hand. "I wish your permission to act."

"Your thinking is wishful, my Pharaoh." Anubis's laughter turned to a smug self satisfaction. "My thrall serves only me now."

Seto Kaiba would tolerate being no ones thrall! It was his very determination to prove such a fact that I was relying upon.

**Kaiba**

The headache was gone. So was the urge to keep throwing-up until I was inside out.

It was calm and beside the hum of recycled air filtering in the background, quiet. The universe stretched out in front of me in every direction, tiny pin pricks of light against the black void of space. Half these stars were probably already dead and I was just observing the distant echo of their life. How fitting. Was I stargazing with Mokuba again? I turned my head to get a look at him, but he wasn't there. The details of my environment bled in around me. I was on the deck of my space station.

Of course I was; I hadn't gone anywhere. The emergency lights were on for some reason. Someone in maintenance must have fucked up.

The Millennium Puzzle hung suspended in the chamber in front of me, my computer rendering the solution that would piece it back together again in just under six hours. Ha. So much for eight years, Yugi. The mechanical arm spun and pivoted, reorienting itself with each new puzzle piece in its steady grip, calculating in three hundred and sixty degree virtual space the exact transformations and translations required to slot it into position. I'd have my duel before the day was done.

I doubted the Pharaoh would approve of being back in Yugi's body - I sure as hell wouldn't have in his position - but that was just going to be too bad. He'd just have to suck it up and live it out like all the rest of us.

The mechanical arm successfully placed another piece. The progression counter crawled up another few percent. Good. Or it was until the display suddenly sparked and flashed. It went black for a split second before rebooting like nothing had happened. Looked like a power surge. Annoying - but easy to fix.

Was that what had I been doing before this?

I couldn't remember. It had been important, I knew that much. This was abnormal. Usually I had too many thoughts, not too few. Walking away from the Puzzle felt like a defeat even though it was incomplete, like the Pharaoh was somehow watching. Ridiculous. I squared my shoulders and marched back down the gantry. I tossed a glare back at the chamber just in case.

The console at the other end of the room had my work logs. They'd tell me whatever the hell I'd been doing. I jabbed my thumb against the fingerprint scanner to authenticated my identity, unlocking the work station. There were only two people in the entire world this station was designed to activate for. I wondered where Mokuba was. How long had I been up here?

Better question yet, why the hell was this here?

On the console sat my Duel Monsters pendant. The same pendant I had very deliberately left behind on my bedside table at the mansion. Wordlessly I snatched it up, catching the latch to open it up enough to confirm it was mine. The photograph of Mokuba smiled at me and I snapped the locket shut again, holding it so tightly in my hand that the corners dug into my fingers. I slipped the pendant's cord around my neck. It fell back into place like it had never been missing.

It wasn't supposed to be up here. I'd left it behind on purpose.

Mokuba was growing out all of that kid stuff and had stopped wearing his, so I'd stopped wearing mine. He was trying to become his own person and I wanted to give him the space that had never been given to me. Hell, as I'd gotten older my adoptive father's choke-hold had only grown tighter in response. If cutting his hair and not wearing a necklace made my brother feel more mature, then so be it. Small price to pay. Something so loose in Earth's atmosphere would have been like choosing to wear a fashionable noose anyway.

My hand kept holding it, even after sorting out all those thoughts. Having it back in its place against my chest felt normal, despite the creeping sensation that something was wrong with this situation. Something here wasn't right.

Now my eyes knew what to expect I was easily able to pick out more of my own paraphernalia lurking in unusual places. The leather wallet containing a set of screwdrivers that I kept in my desk draw; the silver lighter with the KC logo engraved on the side that was lying around my office somewhere. Even my phone was here, lying casually on top of the environmental controls console. I'd left that in my locker back on the Earth's surface; the device had no right to be here. I picked it up, wondering if it would be as convincing a fake as the locket was. For all intensive purposes it looked just like the phone I'd left behind. It had the same white body and KaibaCorp. branded case, even the same hairline scratch in the gorilla glass screen from when I'd thrown it across my office after some moron gave the number to the marketing teams.

I collected up each of the objects, crushing them in my hands to test their rigidity as I did so. They felt real, but there was no way any of these things could actually be here.

_"Kaiba! Awaken and cast out this invader!"_

What the-? I wheeled backward to stare at the Puzzle. It was still suspended silently in the reconstruction chamber; its completion hadn't raised even a single percent. It could go to hell, because I knew what I heard. I paced the room, taking in every detail as I did so, examining every corner and console for some remote speaker or bullshit trick. Someone was definitely getting fired. The more I looked the more I noticed consoles blinking erratically and wires trailing where they weren't supposed to be, some of them were even frayed.

Sabotage? It was unlikely. Nothing and no one could get up here without my express permission - this was the best protected KaibaCorp installment ever made.

_"Leave it to me."_

"Get lost." I yelled back at the Pharaoh's voice. Where the hell was it coming from?

I snarled as I swiped at the security logs, each camera revealing nothing just as they rightly should, until one made me pause. I ran a diagnostic. It had to be a feed from the hologram suite because nothing else made any logical sense! The camera was on the Pharaoh's AI, but someone had updated the character model - it faced off against me. Or what was clearly meant to be me. Had one of the simulation crew left this running? When I caught the moron who'd messed up my model to make it into some frothing psycho there was going to be the sort of intense disciplinary action that makes sure you not only never work for KaibaCorp again, but never work in the industry, Domino City or the whole damn country.

I deactivated power to the holographic projection suite, but the camera feed kept on rolling. "Damn it!" I slammed my fists against the console.

"BLU!" I snapped.

"Yes, Mr. Kaiba?" replied the space station's AI.

"Deactivate the Pharaoh simulation. Make it quick." I'd run out of patience. Up here was supposed to be completely secure - a one hundred percent controlled environment, free of distraction. Something being in here, moving my things around and corrupting my simulations was unacceptable!

"I can't do that, Mr. Kaiba." It replied. It better not be choosing that turn of phrase to be ironic.

"Don't get cute with me, why not?" I could always wipe BLU out, replace every piece of its circuitry and try again - this time for an AI that wasn't going to talk back or crack wise.

"Simulation not found." BLU replied simply. "There are no simulations currently active."

Even BLU was affected by whatever cyber espionage this was. "Fine. Try deactivating the Pharaoh simulation and then re-initializing it from the last back-up." I wouldn't need the Pharaoh simulation soon, not after I crushed the real thing in duel in seven hours or so, but that didn't mean I'd let this modified version of it hang around my database taking up space.

"Back-up restored. Re-initializing now, Mr. Kaiba."

The light of my holograms traced the Pharaoh's form in the air before generating in the added volume and mass that made my holograms strong enough to touch - if you were careful. The Pharaoh's AI rendered into the room in front of me. The back-up was a success; its skin was the usual pale peach and clothing matched what I'd programmed for it based on Yugi's wardrobe. 'He' even had the audacity to look as confused as I felt. He glanced around, looking at everything but me. I hated that. I snapped my fingers in front of his face, drawing his attention my way like it was supposed to be. He frowned at that.

"I'm not a dog, Kaiba." 'He' reprimanded. I felt my temper even out a little as his sparked up.

"Then stop looking around like a stupid puppy." Normalcy was refreshing. He huffed at the indignity of that, hair seeming to somehow stand even more erect in irritation.

Despite the mockery he craned his neck to get one final overview of the deck, eyes lingering on the half rebuilt Millennium Puzzle. He stared up at a frayed cable as it sparked above his head and looked thoughtful, then troubled. "We're in your soul room, and it's been damaged." He noted, if you could call that a note. "Coming here is no small feat. Doing so is very reckless without a Millennium Item."

I scoffed, loudly.

'Soul room'? Even the back-up was a mess. This had to be some sort of computer virus.

"We're on my space station." I corrected it, waiting to gauge its reaction for troubleshooting purposes. We'd run hundreds of duels here, this shouldn't be new to it.

The cyber Pharaoh smirked at me, contradicting my assertion with just a smug look. "All of this is in your mind. Including me." Great. Another self-aware AI gone mad. He ambled around like he was searching for something. "I wonder why you've come here." He paused as his path brought him in front of my security monitor, the two simulations from before still fighting it out. Looks like the crazed version of me had the upper hand. Wasn't that nice.

The artificial Pharaoh rounded on me in an instant. I crossed my arms tightly to squash the instinct to shove him out of my personal space at the abrupt movement. "Kaiba, your body has been possessed, that's why your mind is here" he declared. I rolled my eyes so hard they should have fallen out of the sockets.

"Like by a spooky ghost? Get real." I could hardly contain my dubiousness, or my boredom. Then again there were few people in the world more qualified to give a seminar on being a ghost and possessing people than the Pharaoh. Too bad the AI version in front of me was completely made up of my own memories of him. It made all this banter purely self-indulgent, in a bad way.

"This is serious!" He barked. "That's what's real." He added, pointing a finger at the rogue security feed. He turned on me to watch the screen in earnest like a movie premiere.

As if.

I couldn't believe the bullshit that came out of his mouth sometimes. Most of the time. The fact that all this dialogue had to be coming from somewhere in my sub-conscious only made it more infuriating. "So I'm supposed to help you beat me, again?" I snapped. "This is my dream; you can get lost!" I assumed this was a dream. I couldn't explain it away as anything else.

"Open your eyes! This is no 'dream'! There's more at stake here than your pride!" The Pharaoh roared. "Why are you so unable to trust my word? Friendship is in our cards, Kaiba, or do you deny those words now that it best suits you?" He pressed.

I scowled at him. "Don't paraphrase me!"

His anger subsided into a victors grin, like he'd scored a point. "So you don't deny it?" I gritted my teeth. The bastard had baited me into another of his traps. "Of course I do!" I snarled back, unable to deal with his shear fucking audacity "We aren't 'friends', idiot!" He opened his mouth to argue but was interrupted by the other version of himself.

"_Kaiba, hear me. He is using your life as a shield. I cannot defeat him without harming you."_ The darker skinned Pharaoh AI on the feed paused, staring so deeply at my rabid counterpart that it made the hairs on my neck stand on end._ "I wish your permission to act."_

Was this real? The Egyptian-textured version of the Pharaoh stood there simply waiting while the freak version of me smirked and drooled all over himself.

"He needs your help." The paler AI beside me turned to stare into my eyes. This level of eye contact with him so close up felt uncomfortable. Overly intimate. I broke it off, muttering "Fine." I preferred our staring matches when there was a duel arena's worth of space between us, not when he was close enough to lean over and bite me.

My neural uplink accessed the custom OS I'd written for our two Duel Disks. My fingers flew across the menus as security barrier after security barrier hovered in front of me in glowing blue holograms. I'd built in this feature to just these two units. I'd toyed around with it for a few hours after seeing Diva's Dimension Summoning but it wasn't something I could implement and fully test in time before the launch of my Dual Dimension pod. Used improperly it could very well make for a dangerous weapon and I'd fought almost to the death to get out of that business once before. Activating it now to use this way was regression, not evolution. Everything with him felt like that.

With a final passcode and the tapping of 'enter' the restrictions on our Duel Disks were disabled, enabling the Duel Disks to summon monsters and cards outside of conventional duel parameters. I didn't like the idea of releasing semi-solid holographic Duel Monsters into the world but this free-form duel mode would be just the edge needed against the little magic show happening on the monitor.

I cast my eyes back to the security feed. Let's see the so called 'King of Games' figure it out.


	8. Chapter 8

**Atem**

Kaiba's Duel Disk flared to life and mine answered it in kind.

A shock of cyan and gold illuminated the room in tones that faded and cascaded into each other in a ribbon of light that gently undulated and merged. My own eyes had never seen the Northern Lights, but through Yugi I knew of their splendor. Kaiba's holograms recreated the natural marvel above our heads.

There was no room for doubt; Kaiba had heard me.

In unison both Duel Disks activated. Holographic menus darted before us, opening and closing quicker than even the keenest eye could read. It seemed that while Anubis may have possession of his body, the neural link commanding the Duel Disk remained at Kaiba's command. The menu screens opened and closed, appeared and collapsed at an impossible speed. Login screens were conquered in invisible keystrokes and loading screens materialized and dissipated until Kaiba reached his goal. A final display hung heavily in the air above us. Projecting it in red was a decision I doubt Kaiba had designed lightly; nor the danger and hazard warnings that vied for attention like terrible harbingers. With a final invisible password entry and the depression of an unseen 'enter' key the menu flashed twice; voicing it's warning to all whom could see in crimson tones before vanishing as quickly as each of its predecessors had come and gone.

It was the first time I had paid the golden Duel Disk on my own arm much attention since Anubis's resurgence, but apparently the Duel Disk itself had been far from inert.

The Sphinxes summoned though Anubis's necromancy had gone unseen but it had recorded with keen accuracy the spells used by Isis, Mana and Mahad to come to my aid. Even my own blast of magic was displayed before me, represented by the trap card Obliterate!. I had kept no such card in mind while unleashing my magic but much like the monsters, the trap and spell cards of Duel Monsters were too based on those used in ancient Egypt. It seemed the Duel Disk was intuiting what best matched it's card database to understand what was beyond its comprehension. It was a stubborn device, just like it's creator. I smirked.

Whatever Kaiba had set up his presence was announced to us both as the final tap on the 'enter' key made both the Duel Disk on my arm and the matching one on Anubis's host body flash red. The pulsing crimson light painted the whole throne room in dangerous tones as several holographic system messages blared warnings at us. It was spectacular.

"What is this?" Anubis glowered, glaring for the first time on the device on his stolen arm as a wailing siren spilled from it.

"Solid Vision safety protocols disengaged. Free Duel mode, activated." A demure female voice announced. The whirring of the alarm silenced and I knew exactly what it was Kaiba had in mind. His proposed solution was simple to guess. Battling with magic made this a difficult fight to win without destroying Kaiba, but he had found a solution. Where magic failed, his technology would succeed, and he had just removed the shackles from the systems on our arms.

He had changed the rules out from under us to my advantage.

Pulled onto the field by thought alone, Kaiba's mind willed a face down card between us. As in a true duel, the play appeared in the Duel Disk's 'Played Cards' log. I smirked, suspecting I already knew what card Kaiba had played. Anubis glowered at it and grimaced at the Duel Disk on Kaiba's arm, unable to understand how to regain control of the device that would answer only Kaiba's call.

"Know this Anubis, your defeat comes from the hands of the very duelist whose body you have stolen!" I announced to him, pleased with my rival's innovative solution.

"Fool! No flashing child's plaything is threat to me!" the necromancer spat back.

"Not on its own." I agreed, enjoying the way Kaiba's expression became furious and incredulous. Though Anubis still controlled him it was the first familiar look on Kaiba's face since this began. "But in my afterlife these are mere cards no longer!" I enjoyed watching his expression shift.

The creeping mass of technology rising up Kaiba's arm to his shoulders drew the necromancer's contempt. He all but snarled at the apparatus. "Arrogant little gnat. Reducing the glory of my sorcery to a mere card game once more!" Anubis roared, glaring at the Duel Disk.

"Indeed." I mocked. Truly, he was without defense. "Yet by 'mere cards' you were sealed before, and you will be once again!" I taunted, the elation and promise of victory filling my body.

"Never!" He yelled, straining Kaiba's voice to a near scream. "If I am to be defeated then I will take this rebellious rat with me!"

Kaiba's fingernails split from the savage force with which Anubis dug them into the equipment lining his suit and then wrenched it from his arm. I had forgotten just how deceptively strong Kaiba's body was. "Mwhahaha" Anubis roared with laughter, the face down card Kaiba had placed on the field flickering and flashing. His Duel Disk must have been damaged by the carnage. The dislodged shell of his technology flashed frantically as the wires connecting it to the unit around his neck tore from their connectors.

"What have you done?!" By Kaiba's own omission that tech had been the only thing keeping him in this world! Without it Anubis would kill them both! The afterlife was no place for living souls.

With a sizable snap the components were pulled apart. The device cooed softly as it powered down and the lines of energy that had been racing across Kaiba's suit dulled until all that was left of their light was the track marks sewn into his outfit. He snared the remaining components scattered across Kaiba's neck and head, pulling each of the inert pieces away from his host's body and tossing them the floor. The final piece – the one that had crowned Kaiba's skull- he crushed beneath his boot with the strike of one of Kaiba's powerful legs.

My world was no longer kept at bay by Kaiba's suit. The black soot that had slowly been creeping across Kaiba's extremities exploded into a vortex of particles, massive holes appearing across the length of the duelist's form as his body was eaten away into non-existence.

"Kaibaaaaa!"

"The victory is mine, my Pharaoh!" Anubis's shout eclipsed my own as he and Kaiba were all but erased.

Abject despair raced the length of my body, before it was replaced with something else.

A heaviness weighed down on my shoulders, sinking deep through my flesh and into the marrow of my bones.

It was the unmistakable feeling that accompanied the summoning of the Shadow Realm. Yet the new card that called itself into play was no shadow creature or hellscape. "It's Kaiba's spell" I noted to myself. It felt as though hours had passed since he cast it, but in truth it could only have been moments. The Shadow Realm swirled, churned and heaved, defining and redefining itself to meet the terms of its wayward evoker before from its dark depths opened a monstrous eye.

Cards called into existence by Kaiba's Duel Disks appeared in a flare of light; blazing into being with the ferocity of the device's creator. Anubis's creations in contrast grew and almost crept onto the battlefield in wet and fetid black lumps like rotting weeds. This card's summoning was neither. It materialized in a torrent of smoke above our heads, drawing together in a whirl of miasma the very color of the Shadow Realm itself. That was no mere coincidence. Its corners solidified and image became clear as this so called 'Eye of Osiris' loomed above us, depicted as a purple and red eye and surrounded by a spiral of undulating smoke. The Duel Disk on my arm flashed frantically, desperate to understand this development and add it to the 'Cards Played' log. Its interpretation was a curious one. It rendered this new spell as a continuous effect trap card, not unlike the Pyramid of Light had been in it's Duel Monsters incarnation. It occupied neither side of the field and boasted an immunity to the effects of all other cards.

Yet, it was the rest of the card description that stilled me.

"Players do not lose the Duel even if their Life Points become 0. For each time fatal damage is taken, place one Death Counter on the player. When there are three Death Counter on the player, destroy them." I read out loud from the card description as the Life Point counter dutifully obliged the card. With a loud chirp the figure of zero life points flashed back onto the interface of both mine and Kaiba's Duel Disks. It seemed the Eye of Osiris was taking some additional liberties of its own. Without physical cards it cut and shuffled our decks automatically, fusing them together into one as it dealt in another player. Only the monsters sent to our graveyards remained the same- a fitting metaphor for the permanency of the afterlife.

"But wait-" I spoke aloud, watching the stream of ash still smoldering around the final lingering remains of Kaiba's body. "-That isn't all." While in effect all players became immune to Surrender, Deck Out and Game Loss. If that held true then by the magic of the card a player couldn't be removed from this dimension until they accrued three Death Counters, with no exception.

"Which would mean -" I didn't finish my thought, instead I glanced back to Kaiba.

It took me a moment to accept exactly what it was that I was seeing as a first Death Counter was added to our combined player profile. The decaying dust that had eaten him alive was no longer traveling away from the Kaiba, but toward him with steady intent. The magical process that had flayed the particles from his body was repeating in reverse, returning all the bits of him that had flown off to their original places. The implication made me stop short. His body was being restored, becoming whole once more - becoming part of my world.

A silent sigh that I did know I had been holding in escaped from my lips unbidden.

"This cannot be!" Anubis howled, returned to form by the effect of the Eye of Osiris. He clenched Kaiba's fists and snatched at his hair. "I shall not be defeated again!"

"You can." I told him, chuckling at the misfire of his cowardly plan. "And you shall." There was no room for hesitation, this had gone on long enough. "Meet your end, Anubis!" I bid him and I would not have my command denied.

Panic leeched into Kaiba's eyes, turning them feral and desperate."Andro Sphinx, Sphinx Teleia!" He summoned them back to him, my breath catching with relief as their oozing bodies uncoiled and slid away from my fallen friends. Mana stirred slightly in Isis's arms, the priestess herself moaning softly and across the room Mahad's chest rose and fell in a slow but steady cadence. Even Seto's eyes seemed to actively dart behind his eyelids despite his head injury. For them to be alive and unharmed was more I had thought to wish for. Thank the Gods.

"I will be your death!" Anubis roared.

In a desperate final defense the pair of melted monsters rejoined, melding together into a single stinking mound of gore and climbing up Kaiba's long legs and across his body to coat him like a second skin. The two fetid bodies met and swirled together across his chest - a sickly black jackal head of solid sludge bubbling out of the lump with a wet pop to protrude outward from Kaiba's body. It gurgled as its rotting maw snarled at me and gnashed at the air sending a slurry of foulness scattering in every direction.

It would matter not!

"Swords of Revealing Light, I summon you!" My Duel Disk obliged me. I outstretched my hand, the holographic card I called from my deck dutifully rendering in front of me, heavenly knives raining from the ceiling of my throne room to trap Anubis in place. He bellowed in furious anger and the coat of living tar across his body writhed and sizzled wherever the swords struck. "And I call my Dark Spear!" I thrust my arm into the air, my palm filling with the hefty weight of the Spear's hilt as the gleaming lance was remade by Kaiba's holograms. "Prepare yourself!" I warned Kaiba and Anubis both as I charged across the distance between us.

"Never again!" the hastily erected barrier of Kaiba's life force did nothing to block me; neither Swords of Revealing Light nor my lance were objects of magical creation and did Kaiba's soul no harm. I passed straight through the phantasmal life form in a swift lunge. My Dark Spear pierced through the sphinx's slimy skin to strike true at the newly formed jackal head and I plunged the weapon as deeply as I could into its straining throat.

"Noooo!" Anubis howled "Maggots! Filth! Worms!" he roared as the jackal head's anguished jaws flexed and strained to close around my lance to no avail.

"Finally, I'll use the very card placed face down by Seto Kaiba to banish you once more!" I had no doubt what his card was and my faith was justly rewarded. At my command the card turned upward from the floor. "I activate Kaiba's Soul Release. Now, begone!"

The blue-skinned elfin woman swam though the air free of her card; her hair undulating as though caught on an invisible current. She glided toward us with her eyes firmly sealed closed and smiled gently at me as I held Anubis pinned in place at the end of my Spear. Her ethereal hand reached into Kaiba's chest and she leaned back to pull out the ghostly essence of Anubis. The sorcerer's phantom image thrashed in her hold and was finally yanked free of Kaiba's body. "This is not the last of me, my Pharaoh!" he thundered as the goo encasing Kaiba's body blasting away from him in heavy spurts to splatter over the walls and floors of my throne room. His expression of violent fury shattered into a pained, exhausted relief.

With a gleeful chirp my Duel Disk added a first Death Counter to Anubis's side of the field and the maiden of Soul Release whisked her captive away with her. As she faded out of existence the undead filth of Anubis's necromancy fell apart, still stinking but now inert.

"Kaiba?" I questioned as he staggered slightly, surprised he was managing to stay on his feet no matter how much he wavered and trembled. "Speak." I pressed, steadying him with a hand against his chest. The material of his shirt was notably soft. It made the quaking of the hard planes of his torso even more jarring.

"I need mouthwash." Was his clipped reply. It made me smile despite the situation.

Across the room my priests began to stir and rise, Mana leaping to her feet with her boundless energy and helping Isis to do the same. I glanced across them, finding the rich blue tones of my High Priest's robes still spilled across the floor from where Seto lay motionless, but there wasn't time to inspect further. Instead it was my turn to stagger as abruptly Kaiba fell forward onto me. I caught him instinctively, supporting half of his body against my shoulder and bracing myself to stand strong under his weight. He groaned quietly to himself as he stiffly leaned against me.

I exhaled though my nose, incensed by the liberties Anubis had taken with his body.

"How do you feel?" I tried, smothering the note of worry that had tried to edge its way into my tone. There was no need for it, I reasoned. He had been in this position before and recovered - this would be no different. Though, I would ensure he grasped the full width and breadth of his error of judgment in casting a spell to summon forth the very God of the afterlife the moment the insolent idiot was fit to properly explain himself.

"You won, again." came the muttered reply, his droning tone dripping with sarcasm as his warm breath ghosted across my neck. With a bump of my shoulder I hitched him to lean against me more securely; he was heavy, yet still lighter than he looked. His muscles shivered as he tried to stand alone but floundered and ultimately resigned himself to continue using me as a support with a short hiss of aggravation.

I chose not to rise to his petulance because in truth, I wasn't sure that he was correct. Though Anubis's player profile now bore a single Death Counter this was far from over if the Eye of Osiris's card effect was to be believed.

"The Duel Disk begs to differ." The display hovered in gold at my height so I lifted up my arm to give Kaiba a better view as he leaned over my shoulder.

He flinched against me at the motion. I frowned, catching his reaction even as he quickly tried smothering it. His head lifted slowly as though weighing much more than it should and fatigued eyes focused on the Duel Disk logs, yet he still had to stoop a little to read them. "What!" He barked, loudly, straight into my ear. I scowled at him for that but he was too fixated on the Duel Disk's display to notice it. "It's at zero but the life point gauge is still running, so the duel didn't end." I watched as he turned the thought over in his mind, flipping it like a card; I could see the conclusion he reached was distasteful as I felt his body tense against mine. "Then you haven't won yet." He growled, suspicion laden in his tone.

That is what I'd originally said, but it seemed pointless to goad him. Not while his movements were still jerky and breathing slightly labored. There was blood in the beds of his nails and his fingers trembled as they attacked the Duel Disk for answers, hastily calling up the log of played cards and lingering in stony disbelief as they found a readout of the effects of The Eye of Osiris.

"You need to rest." I noted.

He looked gaunt and as pale as papyrus. The slight sunburn on his neck, his ruffled hair and the light sheen of sweat on his face made him look frayed around the edges in a manner I'd never seen before. Even his coat fell messily around him waves of heavy material, as though finally free to act as a normal garment should now its owner was no longer paying attention to it. The behavior was faintly disturbing. Tired shadows slept beneath his eyes and as surely as the tight fabric of his shirt clung to his pronounced abdominal and pectoral muscles, it also exposed the harsh ridges of his ribs as his parted where my hand held him steady. He looked weak. It wasn't a description he would approve of.

"Screw off!" Came his terse reply, snapped at me with all his remaining venom. Oddly this guileless hair-trigger response confirmed for me beyond a shadow of a doubt exactly how much he needed time to recover. "I'll rest when I'm dead" He sneered, pointedly adding a note of accusation into his tone for good measure. He turned to glare at me, watching for my response. His exhausted blue eyes were thirsty for me to meet his angry jab in kind yet I needed to bridle my rage if I was to deal with him.

"Enough." I told him, firmly.

"Tch." His eyes narrowed.

"I won't be lured into an argument with you." I added with finality. Denying him a fight would be difficult if he was determined to make one happen, but I had confidence I could outlast him even as his fresh anger seemed to renew his strength.

He crossed his shaky arms over his chest, exhausted and hostile in equal measure. "The Duel's over Pharaoh and you've got no smug pronouncements about how much I've 'disappointed' you?" He challenged nastily, casting the word 'disappointment' in iron on his tongue. "How I've lost your precious 'trust'?" He scoffed. "You're losing your edge."

His timing was uncanny. As was so natural for Kaiba, he would impose himself upon me before I had finished taming my own views and force me to confront his, but certainly I wouldn't let him escape his actions. Amid Anubis's appearance in aftermath of our draw I hadn't yet truly turned over Kaiba's actions in my mind. "Leave it be." I told him, keeping my sentence short. The burdensome irritation of his actions hadn't completely escaped me, but I was determined to ignore it while other matters pressed more urgently.

It seemed Kaiba was unable to do the same. "

Just shout at me already and get it over with!" He barked, becoming increasingly more enraged with me for my lack of response.

Against my will my thoughts wandered back to his ill-conceived plan to abduct me from my own paradise and I scowled as righteous fury bubbled in my blood. Why? To what end? To be his captive and duel over and over again until he claimed a flawless victory over me? Could anyone be so petty? Yes, I reminded myself, Kaiba could indeed be exactly that petty. His raw arrogance was beyond measure if he thought I would accompany him without resistance as some placid trophy.

"Even had your plan succeeded, there would have been a reckoning beyond your imagination. I promise you that." I smirked mirthlessly.

Kaiba wanted my anger and I would not permit him it.

He gritted his teeth as my reply denied him and wordlessly glared at me in response. In his silence he forfeited his turn, so I pressed my advantage.

"What was all of this in aid of? By your own account, you already have a simulated version of me to cut your teeth on." I reasoned, unable to keep my exasperation at bay. I wanted to know this, though I hadn't realized how badly until my question had left my lips.

He broke my gaze and glowered off to the side. It didn't surprise me that I received no answer. "Tell me." I commanded, only to be met with a scoff and a scowl.

Kaiba was not my High Priest - I couldn't draw words from his mouth by simply commanding him to speak. That was frustrating. It had been many days since I had last reflexively search my mind for Yugi's, but at this moment I wished for his wisdom, his ability to gently slip through armor with his words without cutting the flesh beneath it. I wanted to pry Kaiba apart and find the answer. Unless he had none.

"Or don't you know?" I demanded, knowing I had discovered the truth and was pressing down on a wound as Kaiba's fists clenched. I waited for him to rally his temper to his defense but perhaps he had little left to muster. He didn't answer.

This conversation seemed to be over.

**Teleia**

The Master beckoned me.

**"Sphinx Teleia. Awaken!"**

And I did.

With each fraction of this hideous body that slipped down her neck, she became mine.

I relaxed her as soon as my control was strong enough, opening her throat, her eyes, flaring her nostrils to flood as much of 'me' into her body as possible. Such an inappropriate vessel. I didn't like her! I didn't like the upturn of her nose and her hair was dark and coarse and far too short for my tastes – but a body, any body, was better than crawling around in that disgusting form! What had the Master been thinking? Summoning us so poorly! It would not do! It would not do at all!

But of course. My new form came under my control fully and I prowled her thoughts and feelings finding nothing of interest in this boring little shrew! How dull. How very dull!

"Isis!" A shrill voice chirped at me, stirring in the arms of my new body and flicking away some slivers of previous one with a feckless blast of magic. How I wished to screech at her for that! But that was not the way of this 'Isis' woman. The little mage clambered to her feet full of energy and turning to offer me her hand.

"Thank you, Mana" I replied demurely, so soft and gently it made me near nauseous.

I allowed her to help me too my feet and brushed down my robes, inspecting my acquisition as I did so. Her hips were passable, and her breasts bountiful but I simply could not overlook her horrible hair. It was like the tail of a mule.

"Are you alright?" The little learner questioned again. A desperation lurked beneath her tone that thrilled me. I did so love a despairing prey!

"I am unharmed." I replied, with a gentility that I could already feel press upon my nerves. Up keeping this deception would be tricky, and this little mage, well, she looked good enough to eat. Perhaps my hunger showed; she curled her hair around a finger nervously.

"I was able to erect a barrier between my body and it." I fibbed, ghosting my hand around to room to gesture to the remains of me that sat still and disconnected in heavy black lumps. The little learner's expression brightened and she dazzled a smile at me. I preferred her hair, and those succulent lips. Perhaps if I could catch her alone I might find a way to 'trade'. Her younger, softer body aroused my appetite. Her shock of hair had great appeal, but the body of a fully grown woman was not without its advantages. This 'Isis' had a position as priestess which afforded me more privileges in her vessel. Perhaps I would use her up and then move on to the young Mana once I had enjoyed my fill.

"That is a relief to hear" agreed Mahad. His stern voice drifted across the room with none of the warmth the words suggested should be present. "I did much the same." I glanced up at the sorcerer who was this body's almost-lover and instead found Ano leering at me from behind his eyes. It seemed the lion-brained pest had copied my idea. How dull! He had no originality!

Mana's eyes lit as she saw her master was similarly 'unharmed'. I used her distraction to smirk at Ano, the expression tugging on the muscles of this body's face with strain. I relaxed the face as Ano glared back to me. Clearly a smile of any kind was beyond the norm of this boring woman. He nodded at Mana as she came bounding toward him with a flurry of excited affection. Calmly and carefully he placed his hands on her shoulders, nodding appropriately at the pauses in the string of noise that spilled out of the little mage's quick mouth.

Ano was convincing as always. It seemed he had a greater talent for deception than myself. I had no patience for such trickery. My hunger welled too quickly to waste my time spinning such deceptions. He made for a convincing Mahad, based on my host's memories.

"How is Seto?" Came the Pharaoh's voice across the throne room as the young King remained anchored in place in his efforts to prop up the pale boy.

I exchanged a final glance with Ano before volunteering to investigate "I shall see."

His body lay apart from our own. I straightened my headdress and my host's sandals softly pattered across the floor as I sauntered to his position. The stain of the wayward priest's blood looked fetching decorating the wall behind him. Jostling his shoulder did nothing but make his pretty head flop to one side.

"He lives, but he will not wake." I answered the Pharaoh with well-acted neutrality.

Seto Kaiba scoffed at my use of the word 'lives' as he hung draped over the Pharaoh's shoulder like a sort of handsome human pelt.

"He requires a healer." I added, keeping my mirth from my voice.

"Allow me." came Ano's diligent tone through Mahad's mouth. He outstretched his hand in conjuration - two mischievous imps with malevolent grins bursting from twin summoning circles as the Delinquent Duo spell spirited them into the room. "Carry the High Priest to the healing chambers." He instructed them, the two small devils giggling to themselves manically before scurrying to the High Priest's ankles and shoulders to lift him. They held him only a few feet aloft from the floor and snickered to each other before complying to ferry the High Priest's body from the room. It would seem Ano was already availing himself of his host's spellcraft. His knowledge of the arcane arts would be a delectable tool to abuse.

"Don't forget his stupid hat." Seto Kaiba sneered with an attractive cruelty as the tall headdress fell from atop the High Priest's skull to the throne room floor.

"Kaiba." The Pharaoh reprimanded the boy leaning over him with nothing but his name.

The difference in their heights had made the sight so amusing!

I enjoyed tall men. I enjoyed them greatly. Few had been taller nor more toughened by the world than Anubis. Already I missed the sight of my Master's magnificent body. I would have liked to run my tongue down it and scent its musk one more time. This Seto Kaiba would have done in his stead, one supposed. With his hair grown and his body better built he could have made an arousing host body for my Master. It was disappointing that Anubis had been cast out of it so easily by the Pharaoh's exorcism – I would have very much liked to taste the succulence of his body's flesh between my teeth.

Now the tall boy was useless to us. No, less than useless, for once he recovered he would pose a threat. I suppose I would have to deal with him... my Master would be disappointed with me if I allowed him to live passed his usefulness.

Such a shame. Such a true shame.

I retreated back into the depths of the priestess's tedious little mind to await my opportunity to strike.

**Atem**

The motive behind Kaiba's reticence to speak became clear.

He hastily he stepped away from me as my priests approached us with steady foot falls and leaned back slightly to increase his own height. He scowled wearily at my priests for good measure and attempted to hide his tiredness with non-nonchalance as he leaned against a nearby pillar, rubbing his eyes as he did so. Perhaps it was not as obvious to onlookers as it was to me; they approached him cautiously nevertheless.

I restrained a sigh. It was time to discover the true depths of Kaiba's folly.

I fixed Kaiba with a pointed look; instructing him without words to do as I bid him. I didn't have the patience to deal with his combativeness right now, perhaps he sensed that.

"Show them the spell." I commanded.

With an irritated 'Tch' Kaiba complied. I heard the soft feedback noise of his lengthy fingers tapping something into a holographic keyboard and he branded a projection of whatever it was he had been reading into the air of the temple in glowing blue light. It appeared to be part of an unfamiliar stone tablet, though it was hard to judge its full size and scope as Kaiba had single-minded cropped the image so that only the invocation itself was visible, along the Duel Monster carvings that flanked it.

Isis stepped backwards warily as the display flickered into existence in front of her, one of her hands darting from massaging her temple to the space atop her clavicle out of habit. Slowly and experimentally she lifted her hand and her gentle fingers connected hesitantly with the screen. She pulled her hand back and stared at her fingers, brushing them against each other as though expecting to find some sort of dust left behind.

"What sort of magic is this?" Isis asked calmly, glancing upwards to me.

"It's not 'magic'. It's just light." Kaiba sneered, answering Isis directly with chipped, hoarse words before glaring back at me. "Can we move this along or are you simpletons going to need the full tech demo?" I bristled at his comment. I expected Isis to do so as well but looking across at my priests I was met with only confusion. Mana was frowning, trying to puzzle out the words. Mahad merely watched me, judging my reaction instead.

I had understood from the context and from knowing the taller duelist, but they did not.

While Kaiba could speak the language quite clearly, the phrase 'tech demo' didn't exist within our ancient Egyptian tongue and the words he had fallen back on as substitute were nonsensical when paired together. He'd also slurred them slightly. Even with the considerable force of his determination keeping him on his feet I doubted he'd last much longer.

I swept my arm towards the projected scripture once more, drawing their attention away from Kaiba's statement and back to the matter at hand. With a respectful inclination of her head, Isis took a step forward. She began to trace the complicated hieroglyphics with her eyes.

"To speak these words aloud..." She began, and then hesitated "Is to name one's self equal to the Pharaoh and demand Osiris himself preside as audience over a ceremonial conflict."

Mahad nodded in agreement at her interpretation. "It demands the Foremost of the Westerners hear the priest's terms and officiate over their execution." There was a note of uncertainty in his voice as he voiced the word 'priest'. His eyes trailed over my shoulder toward Kaiba. "It is a difficult spell to cast... even those with the skill to do so would not attempt it." Kaiba was likely only able to cast this spell because he had Seto's soul at his foundation. He had turned the memory of Seto's faith to his own heretical purpose without even realizing it. "Until the outcome of the contest is decided you have bargained away your own life."

Kaiba scoffed.

"It said the winners get to leave this place." He swept an arm down himself. "And instead of sending us both back to the real world it dealt in another player leaving me stuck here with you freaks." He turned his head away from my the disbelieving stares of my priests. "Your 'God' is a liar."

"Kaiba." I warned. "To name Osiris, the god of the afterlife 'a liar' while bound within the confines of that afterlife isn't wise."

"Perhaps your understanding of the incantation is poor." Isis added, her tone level and impassable.

"I can read the words just fine." Kaiba snapped back, his tone mirroring the one he had once used to argue with Ishizu in days past, falling into that same rhythm. Isis didn't concede an inch beneath Kaiba's feral glower.

"Reading the words and understanding them are not the same." Isis concluded. "The nature of such a contest is at the discretion of Osiris to decide, not the inciter. He bids you do battle against Anubis, and so it is."

I placed my finger against my chin, a clear picture of what was required of us forming in my mind. "We must find whatever remains of Anubis and finish this." I glanced upwards at Kaiba, but his focus was divided between arguing with too many different people at once. "That's how we will fulfill the terms of your spell and return you to your world."

Kaiba scoffed at that, so I knew that he had certainly heard me speak but he nevertheless continued arguing with Isis as though he hadn't. "Your 'Gods' stopped being relevant in the real world thousands of years ago. Like hell I'll pander to their 'discretion'" he snarled, this time managing to slur most of his sentence.

He was at his limit.

"Isis." I commanded her attention instantly. She wouldn't like this task, but there was no one more suited for it at this moment. Kaiba clearly recognized her, even if it was as Ishizu. "Find Kaiba somewhere to rest." Isis looked skeptical for a moment, her eyes drifting sedately to Kaiba as his shoulders tensed once more at the suggestion.

"I told you, I don't need 'rest', and like hell I'm going anywhere with any of your toadies!" Kaiba hissed back, his voice was more tired than I had ever heard it before but ready to fight me to the floor regardless.

I wasn't sure how best to deal with him. I had known the duelist long enough to have witnessed time and time again that attempting to force Kaiba to do anything against his will inevitably backfired upon all those involved. If Yugi was with me perhaps he would have known how best to approach the situation. I'd seen his kindness in the face of Kaiba's blunt rudeness win over the taller duelist before.

"Of course not." Isis agreed, somewhat easily as she smiled at Kaiba. That was a rare sight for her. Seto and she typically spent more time quarreling than they did agreeing with one another. "But if you did, the chambers would be this way" she gestured with an outstretched arm toward the passageway lead to the living quarters. I marveled at her risky move, thankful for her initiative.

Perhaps beneath Kaiba's arrogant facade he agreed with my order. He glowered at Isis, hopefully caught between his pride and his common sense.

"Hnh. Whatever." He muttered after a pause.

Without allowing a single step to be taken toward him he pivoted on his heel and slowly stalked off in the gestured direction. Of course he had to be as contrary as possible, yet even so that felt too easy. I suspected Kaiba had something duplicitous in mind to agree with such a token resistance. I had faith that whatever he was thinking, Isis would prove equal to the challenge.

I nodded gratefully to my priestess and she bowed in reply. With a silent sigh Isis followed after him. At least their lack of enthusiasm for each other matched. Isis would perform her duties to her best ability, but I doubted Kaiba would consent to being my guest for long, despite the many number of times I had agreed to be his. In stubbornness he was more likely to charge head long back into the harshness of the desert than accept my hospitality.

Mahad watched them leave, a solemn expression on his face.

I could understand that sending Isis away with Kaiba was concerning to him given Kaiba's demeanor but while he was far from 'harmless' I knew she would come to no ill fate for guarding him. "She'll be fine." I assured him. Mahad's pensive expression cleared in surprise, his eyebrows rising toward the fringe of his hair. Perhaps I had misjudged. "There is something else?" I questioned, wondering if my assumption had been mistaken.

There was a pause before he answered.

"This afterlife is a reflection of life lived" Mahad mused quietly, the hushed words slow and contemplative. He glanced around the temple expectantly. "I wonder what will become of it once two different lives come to be reflected in the same pool."

* * *

**AN:** A Des Counter, known as a Doom Counter in the _Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's_ anime and Death Counter in the Japanese version, is a counter used exclusively by the card "Infernity Zero". When there are three Des Counters on "Infernity Zero", it's destroyed (generally causing its controller to lose the Duel). In this fic I've decided to use the 'Death Counter' term over the other versions as it fits better thematically with the story.


	9. Chapter 9

**Kaiba**

Find Anubis. Crush Anubis. Go home. Keep it simple.

I was tired. I didn't need Atem to tell me that; I could tell it already from just how difficult it had become to keep my thoughts organized. Lucky me, I'd been trained to function under this exact stressor. I was used to it.

He was even stupider than he looked if he thought I was just going to kick back in his guest suite and take a load off. There was a duel out there to win and I'd be damned if I was going to sit and 'rest' while he ran off to play hero again. No way. Anubis signed his own death warrant the moment he thought he could go for a little joy ride in my body.

To add insult to injury my Dual Dimension Suit -and my original way home- was irreparable. He'd ripped it so far apart that half of it had been on the other side of the room by the time I was back in the driver's seat. It was done for unless these ancient Egyptian yokels could find me a soldering iron. I wasn't going to hold my breath on that one, but there was still a chance to patch up the Duel Disk.

It crackled, humming and fizzing as the broken components struggled to function. If winning this new game was the only other way to get back home then there was no way I was going to play fast and loose with what was left of my tech and only a moron would go into battle with a faulty weapon so I'd have to fix that first. I had Mokuba waiting for me and a company to manage; getting stuck here because of some potentially ridiculous Duel Disk malfunction mid-duel wasn't an option. My pod's rear cargo compartment had some emergency tools for use in the event of a Duel Disk's mechanical failure, which made getting out of this sand castle and back to my pod job one.

I kept my eyes peeled for a side exit since I was several thousand years too early to find a fire escape. It didn't matter what, I just needed some way to get the hell out of here without Atem finding out about it and trying to send me to bed like a punk kid again. Who did he think he was? Dismissing me like one of his flunkies. I'd already guessed everything they'd prattled on about as they'd inspected the the tablet text. Their conclusion was stupidly obvious. I'd come here for a duel and now I was stuck in the afterlife until this thing with Anubis played out. In a way it was what I was used to. If only the winner got to leave the afterlife then effectively loosing meant death.

I was running on fumes. My head was a mess; racing from one thing to the next but that thought was clear. It fit like a well-worn boot.

Losing always meant death.

I'd known that from the outset, but I hadn't 'lost' this time and I wasn't going to stick around until Atem saved the day because some long forgotten god or sorcerer had decided otherwise. It had been a surprise when the 'spell' backfired, of course, but I could deal now that I understood. Pegasus had set me up with his neat little 'look at this newly discovered tablet' trick. I'd run the image through a program to illuminate any falsehoods or digital manipulation and it had been legitimate but now I saw his play for what it really was.

Did he really believe I'd just stick around here in Atem's little mushroom kingdom for the rest of eternity? As if I wouldn't come after him? He was even more deluded than the Pharaoh if that's what he thought and that was really saying something.

_"You have abused my trust and our friendship!"  
_

Shit. Why couldn't I get those stupid words out of my head? What sort if idiot trusts his enemy anyway?

_"I vow to you here and now, I will never forgive this." _

Tch.

The words were familiar and even as all the other sounds in the room had been sucked up I'd heard that clear as a bell. It didn't matter; I didn't want or need his forgiveness. It probably meant there wouldn't be a rematch though. I scowled, having to admit I wasn't in the mood for one right now. Not until my way out of this dimension and back to Mokuba's was standing in front of me.

I rounded a corner heading away from the throne room down an adjoining passageway, mapping the palace out in my mind. Every turn I took was followed by Ishizu in a stupid hat, her footfalls echoing behind me unhurried like she had all the time in the world to catch up to me. Glimpsing her every now and again in the periphery of my vision was pissing me off. If she was going to tail me then I wanted her where I could see her so I stopped and waited for her to catch up. She took her sweet time.

Atem had called her 'Isis', but this was clearly just Ishizu in a more ridiculous headdress.

Did he have no originality at all? Half of his court was copied and pasted out of the real world. Maybe they were stand-ins for people he couldn't quite remember properly like how I'd let my imagination fill in the blanks when trying to remember my mother, except his imagination was clearly crap. Even the selection was nonsensical. Somehow myself and Ishizu made the cut but none of the scooby gang was here dressed in drag with a box on their head. Even Ishizu's insane brother wasn't here and I thought they'd have come as a package deal.

I sneered, keeping Ishizu in my line of sight while still leading us through hallway after hallway. "So what, your brother didn't get invited to the afterparty?"

Clearly she had no intention of leading me anywhere like Atem had ordered her to. She seemed content to let me roam around unchecked. That was was smart. If she'd tried to direct me I'd have lost her in a heartbeat.

She was rubbing her temple with firm circular motions like she was nursing the worlds worst migraine and almost walked right into me.

"Did you asked a question?" She muttered softly. Great. She hadn't been paying any attention at all.

"Your brother?" I snapped, making sure she got it this time. Seto Kaiba didn't repeat himself.

She looked at me strangely.

Ishizu had eyes like a dead fish at the best of times but for a moment she looked unsure what I was saying and then her eyes slid to the right and turned inward, as though trying to recall something she'd heard a long time ago. "I have no brother" She eventually replied, blinking slowly as she did so. "I am the only child of Djedi and Iset" she finished, as though describing what should have been impressive credentials.

I glared at her as we turned around corner, hoping she'd get the point that I didn't ask for her life story and I didn't care. I stopped short, noting that I'd led us into a someone's living quarters while asking my question.

The wooden doors at either side of the doorway had been left open and through the entrance was a room decorated with thick silks and statues of winged cobras. There was a faint draft rustling the fabrics making the place smell like flowers and mint. The decoration was gaudy and terrible - some elaborate urn or scroll was on every surface and polished blades and spears sat on display stands and weapon racks.

"You have sniffed out Seto's chambers like a jackal finding carrion." Came Ishizu's sedate voice from beside me, amusement jabbing at me from her words despite her monotone delivery.

I loathed her implication - that me and that robe-wearing imitation could be in inexplicably linked in any way. The fact that he had my name made me want to take out a lighter and burn his room to the ground. The coincidence gave me an opportunity though. I stepped into the room properly, noting and not caring that Ishizu chose to remain at the doorway rather than follow me in.

I didn't believe in 'auras' or 'presence' or any of that mystical nonsense, but I did believe in empirical evidence. I glanced around the room, not bothering to enter it more than I needed to in order to confirm my theory.

There was no sign of Mokuba here. No Mokuba of any kind, not even an ancient Egyptian knock-off.

My brother left a mark everywhere he went. Sometimes it was a food wrapper in a wastepaper bin, or a light left on, or more recently stubbing his feet against things so half the furniture in the mansion was slightly askew. Puberty was a bitch. Sometimes it was less obvious, like his slightly sweaty tween smell or disrupted cushions or bed linens. He liked my bedroom a lot more than I did and even there he'd settle in and make the space his own if he needed to talk to me for more than two minutes. None of that companionable feeling was here.

"He doesn't have a brother either?" I stated out loud. It wasn't a question, but a demand for confirmation.

There was another introspective pause as Isis queried her internal database, or whatever she was doing. "He does not." Ishizu eventually replied, watching me intently as I left the room. That settled it then.

Getting here only to find Atem already had another version of 'me' to play house with had made my skin crawl but time restraints hadn't allowed me to act on the impulse to force feed the fake his own hat. We were nothing alike! He'd taken orders like a damn servant. I had too once, but I'd been complicit only while figuring out the best way to crush the man giving them to me. I didn't see any of that same motivation in the other version of 'me' when I'd tried to get under his skin. He was acting out of actual loyalty.

As much as I despised the namesake, finding his room set me at ease.

Without Mokuba by my side I wouldn't be... I didn't even know how to finish the thought. Wouldn't be 'functional'? Wouldn't be 'alive'? I wouldn't be me and I sure as hell wouldn't be here. The fake didn't have Mokuba, so despite the looks, the voice and the name, we couldn't be the same. Even when passed through the fog in my skull the logic was pleasingly simple and reliable, like a mathematical equation.

"Wait." Ishizu belatedly bleated, her tone made even softer with distraction.

For the first time she crossed the threshold into the room, frowning at something as she did so "I wonder..." She murmured airily, speaking more to herself than me. It wasn't like she needed to be more cryptic than usual, but somehow she was managing it.

Slipping across the room she parted one of the long silk curtains hanging around the place like the dressing of an opium den to reveal an opening in the wall. That explained where the breeze was coming from. A small balcony overlooked a whole lot of nothing, but the height was impressive at least. I liked high places and this gave me a perfect view of the surrounding area. She pressed her hands to her mouth and gasped silently as she faced out the window, her face making the right expression and mouth hanging open in disbelief, but somehow not getting the sound out to match.

I rolled my eyes at whatever the hell she was reacting to. These people were just full of unnecessary dramatics. She stepped aside as I approached, making room for me to take a look out from the small balcony and I scanned the view for myself. I shared her surprise, but made sure I didn't show it.

The landscape was different to how it had been earlier today. It was difficult to describe.

If ancient Egypt and modern day Domino had been Duel Monsters, then it looked like someone had screwed the rules and played Polymerization to begin to fuse the two with the final form still being worked out as the conflicting components merged together.

Beyond the wastes of the Egyptian desert was now the shimmering outline of a partially coalesced copy of KaibaCorp headquarters. It wavered in place like a mirage or heat haze, semi-translucence and ghost-like. A cell tower and a few of the forests that surrounded Domino and the Kaiba manor had also begun to grow in wherever the hell they pleased to further mess up the map. Each tree was as ghostly as my skyscraper, but seeming to grow more solid with every passing second. The placement of everything was wrong; all of these landmarks were jumbled up and haphazardly arranged.

What the hell was going on?

If it was going to pull from my memory - which it clearly had as some of the newer cladding on the KaibaCorp HQ building had only been completed after Atem decided to fuck off to the afterlife - then it should at least make things geographically accurate.

The device on my arm hissed irritably as I woke it up from stand-by mode. That wasn't a good sound. It was the sort of noise something only makes when two broken components are deciding which of them will be the first to break. I'd have to run a systems diagnostic, but for now I needed the navigation function. Feeding the instruction to my Duel Disk via my neural uplink, a sphere of light loaded up and rapidly reassembled itself to form into a compass. It should have been instantaneous, but instead had taken six seconds.

It spun wildly before the arrow came to rest, pointing me forward toward the pod's last known location. The direction was consistent with my own reckoning of where it should be in relation to my current position. It seemed it was too far out into the remaining desert to have been displaced by the terraforming process.

That made getting back to it easy.

Ishizu interrupted my thoughts by talking to herself out loud. "This will do." She mentioned.

I turned back to her. As soon as my eyes reconnected with hers her expression shifted into something that looked totally alien.

"I request that you stay still." She added, her voice abruptly deeper and huskier as she turned away from me for a second and pulled off her headdress. She tossed it carelessly to the ground and with an inappropriate moan of pleasure she clawed her fingers through her thick hair, pulling it back and over her shoulder. Loose strands spilled from the new styling in heavy waves down toward her clavicle. She could 'request' whatever she wanted. That didn't mean I'd do it. Especially not when she was suddenly throwing her hair around like an over-eager actress in a shampoo commercial and giving me the most intense bedroom eyes I'd seen in a while.

"_She_ compared you to a jackal, but that was inexact." Ishizu purred, slipping into referring to herself in the third person with a conviction that set me on high alert. "You remind _me_ more of a large wild cat, thrashing his tail back and forth -" She took a step forward, waggling her finger in the air as she did so. "Wary.-" She smirked. "Undisciplinable-" She watched me for a long moment. Who knows what she thought she was seeing, or what she was reacting too. Abruptly she glided back onto the balcony beside me with the first degree of urgency I'd seen from her, posing herself on the railing seductively with a practiced casualness. "You prowled through the corridors as though they were your own and rebuked the wishes of the little Pharaoh with a natural blasphemousness." She continued, pointing at me lazily with her voice hitching higher the further through each sentence she got.

"You remind me of my Master." she finished in a low coo, lowering her eyelids and raising her eyebrows to a sultry expression that set an alarm ringing in my brain. Her master?

And when had she gotten so close?

I crushed the urge to step away from her the moment it surfaced. Whatever this was, there was no way I'd let her think for a single moment she'd somehow got the drop on me. Just exactly what was she trying to do anyway? What was up with her? This was Ishizu. The woman was more likely to lay into me with some redundant lecture about destiny than bat her eyelashes at me. I planted my feet and crossed my arms as she silently slipped into my personal space. I hated that. I had to clench my fist to stop it from grabbing her wrist as she extended her hand toward me. What the hell was she thinking!

"You look good enough to eat." She hummed to herself more than me, jabbing her fingers into the left of my chest and walking them upward to rest above my heart. My coat muffled the feeling of them but not by nearly enough. I glared at her with purpose, letting her know that if she didn't step off I would make her. Her reply was a smirk that looked too wide for her face.

"Did you hit your head?" I growled, threateningly.

She continued like I hadn't spoken.

"I could take you in my mouth and then tear you apart, piece by piece." She crawled her body even closer to mine. "Such a glorious consumption." What the hell was wrong with her?

"Yeah, no thanks." I replied, keeping my tone level. I didn't know what game Ishizu was playing but she was going to play it solo.

She squirmed as I gripped her wrist and ripped her hand off of me. I didn't know what this little display as but I'd be damned if I let myself be intimated by a woman; especially one as dead-pan as Ishizu. I locked my arms across my chest and stared her down as she blinked up at me looking neither wounded or discouraged despite my crystal clear intention to do both.

Whatever this trick was I refused to buy into it but I had to grit my teeth against the impulse to throw her off of me as she sidled even closer, so close that her chest pressed against mine.

"I'm warning you." I snapped, edging ever closer to loosing it. I refused to concede an inch. I'd seen power plays like this before. This was the kind of thing that got Gozaburo up in the morning. Actually, I knew for a fact it had at least once.

Tiredness was a time machine for me. I'd spent the majority of my education under Gozaburo pushed to my limit. Too cautious to eat. Too tired to sleep. It always brought me back to those years. He'd probably conditioned that on purpose.

Her breasts had been pressed up against him, crushed against his burgundy suit despite the abject resentment in her eyes. He'd forced her to the floor the moment I had walked through the door, securing his power over her with a punishing handful of her hair. He beckoned me closer just so he could look down on me more easily.

"Actions have consequences boy. I know you can't have forgotten that." He had towered over me back then. The cook was kneeling in front of him, her head bowed. I briefly wondered if he'd called me in here to watch an execution. There was a weight in the air like someone or something was about to die.

My heart had pounded in my chest. This was it. This was the punishment. He'd waited until I'd recovered from surgery just so I could watch without distraction or impediment. The stitches in my arm itched but I'd ignored them. Don't move, don't blink, don't breathe. Just be quiet. Watch. It be over quicker; whatever the hell 'it' was.

The cook's eyes watered, the whites of her eyes so wide and fearful they bulged out of her eye sockets. I'd never seen her look anything other than composed. She was a proud, no-nonsense sort of woman. She'd ruled over the mansion's kitchen staff with an iron fist and it was clear she'd fought every inch of her way up the career ladder for that privilege. I had liked her pride. Mokuba had liked her desserts.

Gozaburo tightened his grip in her hair as she tried to struggle for a moment. I'd only ever seen it up in a professional-looking bun until now. It looked nice down; or it would have were it not keeping her tethered to Gozaburo's clenched fist.

"Nothing to say?" Gozaburo smirked. I shook my head. There was only maliciousness in his grin. This one was particularly dark. The sort he wore before breaking someone down to 'make a point'. His definition of hands on learning was... painful. "Tell me she acted alone and that'll be the end of it." Her breath hitched and she turned her eyes on me, all of her poise lost as she silently begged me to absolve her. I ignored it, more focused on his words than even breathing in and out.

A free pass? That was unheard of. This had to be a trick. It was never that simple. The shock must have somehow crossed my face. Gozaburo chuckled as I averted my eyes away from the cook, struggling to find enough mercy or guilt to tell the truth and relieve her from what would be a horrible punishment. We were in Gozaburo's bedroom. That was how I knew it was going to be especially bad. If I copped to it then he wouldn't kill me at least. I was too valuable a commodity… but I really didn't want to know what he had in mind for this location.

Somewhere way down deep it was like a screw tightened another fraction inside of me; or a coil pressurized.

When my eyes returned to his they were as cold as my resolve. I hadn't co-coerced her, she'd volunteered to help me. She should have known better. The cook began to sob at my expression, knowing already I hadn't enough humanity left to want to save her and take her place.

"She acted alone." I replied, casually.

Gozaburo's lips curled at the corner in to a something victorious and cruel and not quite human.

"Good."

His expression told me he'd won something. I didn't know what. All I knew was I hated him.

"Young master, please!" the cook wailed, tears pouring down her elegant cheek bones. Gozaburo watched me closely as she half-heartedly struggled to get up from the floor and was stilled by a yank on her hair. "Please..." she whispered so softly it was hard to hear over the blood rushing through my ears.

My heart was thundering in my chest.

If I got away with this -actually really got away with this- without being punished again then it would be worth whatever she was going to endure next. I squeezed my eyes shut and refused to recant that as Gozaburo turned back to her and the sound of him unzipping his trousers carved a rip in the silence of the room.

Was he going to-?

The cook sobbed quietly to herself.

I couldn't look; I tore my eyes away from hers, locked them on a lamp that had been minding its own business up until it became the recipient of every shred of hate my body could will upon it from the well in the pit of my gut.

"Look away and I'll make you watch as I do the other end afterwards, boy." Came a gruff threat, made only worse by the amusement that dripped from it.

He wanted me to watch him… do… this? I was what, thirteen? twelve? Of course I'd thought about 'it', but all of that was theoretical to me. Purely theoretical. I stared back at him, trying not to grimace or make a sound as he pulled himself out of his pants and just held it in front of her like he was giving her a gift.

With only a "Get to it" and a yank on her tresses the cook cried one last wave of tears, pulled him out fully and leapt onto him like her life depended on it. It probably did. It shouldn't have been so disturbing, but somehow the desperation with which she closed her lips around him shook me more than the act itself. She had been so proud; so commanding and stern and he'd broken her down to some suckling escort.

"Ahhh." Gozaburo exhaled in a satisfied groan, keeping eye contact with me as he did so. The situation was surreal. It made me a bit sick to watch – to see her do 'that' to him, to see that part of him at all. He hadn't needed to threaten me to keep my watching. It was like a train-wreck or a car crash, I couldn't look away no matter how much the sight and the sounds disgusted me. She didn't stop crying the whole time but at least she stopped sobbing. "Hard to sob with your mouth full." Gozaburo mentioned conversationally, sharing some great pearl of wisdom.

"Remember this, boy." He groaned "A woman's place is with her lips around your meat". He shot me a filthy look. "Doesn't matter which lips". I couldn't focus on anything else except her. Her tongue corded expertly around him, like a snake dancing to a charmers pipe. She ran it around the ridge of his head and down the underside of his shaft like she'd trained for this. She whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut as he plunged all the way into the back of her throat; overpowering her and she gagged and thrashed and then relaxed, completely tame in his grip. She was utterly under his control. Her will to resist was gone. The fight left her eyes and she closed them. Totally subdued. Broken. Docile. Just, crushed.

"You can't trust them. Give them any other power over you and it makes you weaker than they are!" His voice hitched and it was over. "Swallow." He barked at the cook and she did, covering her face with her hands afterwards and crying harder than I'd seen since the new arrivals at the orphanage.

An embroidered handkerchief was plucked from the breast pocket of his suit and he wiped himself on it, his tone casual and distracted as he cleaned up. "Poison is a woman's trick, boy. Try it again and I'll punish you accordingly." I kept my face blank, my eyes blank, my thoughts blank. "Now get out and fix yourself before your next lesson, you little pervert." He smirked, flicking a hand towards the fucking erection in my pants I hoped that by some miracle he'd be too distracted to notice. "Can't have you cumming in the halls now, can we boy?" He called after me as I escaped the room, red-faced.

I marched stiffly back to my own bedroom, straight into the bathroom and just sat there in the dark, not touching it, just willing it and the shameful feeling of being aroused by that display to go away and never ever come back.

My thoughts slammed back to the present.

None of my 'education' had prepared me for Ishizu's hand darting lower to grab at a territory that was most definitely off limits to the public. I felt like a fucking idiot as I jumped backwards away from her grasp. I couldn't be sure that I wasn't going to wring her neck for a split second as she laughed hysterically.

"What the hell are you doing!"

"Shy are we?" She smirked and purred and her expression become something else entirely as she took another step forward and I took another step back. I recognized the look in her eyes and she stalked me down. It was a look I'd seen on Gozaburo when he sensed fear, no matter how well or what length I went to to try to hide it. She swung her arms casually at her side and swayed her hips as she closed the space I had created between us.

"Such a shame" She hummed. "I had mistaken you for a man." I dodged away from her as she lunged forward to grab me again. "But you're just a boy after all." She blinked slowly, inhaling deeply like there was blood in the air.

My lower back buffeted against the railing of the balcony and I gripped it tightly. Her eyes and teeth flashed like warning signals as she cornered me. Damn it. I couldn't believe I'd let her trap me.

"Have no fear," She drawled. I leaned as far back from her as my balance would allow as she threaded her arms around mine, pinning them to my sides. With a final step toward me she gently rested her head against my torso. Her hold was unnaturally strong – that was the only explanation. It had to be why I -

"Hnh."

\- why I froze in place as she held onto me.

"Shhhhhhhhhh." She murmured into my ear.

"Get the fuck off of me!"

Move.

Move, now!

"It's all over now." She whispered.

Move, move, move, move, just move, damn it! A little mobility came back to me and I pushed against her embrace. She was too close. I needed her to get the hell off of me. Right now! Struggling was the wrong move. She crushed her body against me like a mousetrap and snatched at my hair so hard she almost ripped it off of my skull but the pain jump started my reaction as she shattered half of the railing and pushed me from the balcony and with a freakishly powerful shove against my shoulders. I was quick enough to snatch the underside of the railing in my grip one-handed, though using my left hand had been a mistake. There was a familiar rush of pain and sharp ache as something popped in a way it wasn't meant to.

"Ghnn!"

I hissed as I held on, spasms shooting down my arm, threatening to crawl further along the limb to weaken the hold of my fingers.

"That's quite a grip you have." She praised, eyebrows perked in interested as she leaned nonchalantly over what remained of the balcony railing to watch me dangle from it.

My feet found a rocky outcropping to brace against. I'd show her my fucking grip alright. Seto Kaiba didn't die so easily! With a rush of adrenaline I used the crag I was standing on to launch myself back up onto the balcony, Ishizu stepping back as I swung my legs over it and tried to kick her in one solid motion. I crouched low and didn't give her time to find her footing, the damaged Duel Disk on my arm buzzing nosily as my neural up-link fed it my demand for a card.

"You better step back, because I summon Kaiser Sea Horse!"

My Kaiser Sea Horse answered my summoning in a roaring explosion of light and ocean spray and took a step toward Ishizu to put some distance between us. Its head scraped against the rest of its exoskeleton as it turned its head to me for my order, a drop of the sea salt that was covering the plates flying to splatter against my cheek as one piece of carapace ground against another. What the hell? I caught that drip before it could go anywhere and held it hostage on my thumb. It was real. It really was a fat droplet of sea water - partially cloudy with saline and grit from the ocean floor.

So it was going to be one of those kinda days then.

Half the time most of the creatures in Duel Monsters seemed desperate to inhabit that uncanny valley between holographic construct and actual real fucking monster. Of course all this stupid Egyptian shit would make my holograms decide they were real... again. Funny how you can get used to a thing, no matter how unlikely.

It was impossible of course; this weird hybrid, and I wouldn't accept for a single minute it was 'magic' at work but I wasn't going to kid myself. Realistic as my holograms were and even though it blinked in and out of rendering, my monster more than just light. I could see its exoskeletal joints pivot and smell the sea salt that had dried against its body. It was more than just a computer generated character model stretched over rigging. KaibaCorps 3D modeling team was second to none but even they couldn't get that level of authenticity. It was also warm. Kaiser Sea Horse wouldn't be warm if it was under my creative direction; it would have been cold-blooded like a amphibian or reptile, not warm-blooded like a mammal. Unlikely as it was, I knew my own work and this wasn't it. It was somehow more than a hologram.

Whatever the case; hologram or real creature or some wacky hybrid it didn't matter. Isizhu took a step back and then smirked hungrily at me as the sea serpent abruptly flickered and de-spawned.

"What?"

Damn Duel Disk! The visual processor must be shot. It sparked angrily as I glowered at it. There was a dent from my own fingers in the outer casing. A normal Duel Disk's outer shell could stand up to a lot of punishment, but these aluminum alloys weren't nearly as tough. Since I'd been taking it into space and across dimensions making it light had taken priority over making it durable and that decision had come back to bite me. The dent from my fingers must have compacted some of the components and wires beneath.

Fine!

Something that took less effort to render then! A new card came to mind and I slapped it onto the field without hesitation.

"A Wingbeat of Giant Dragon!"

**Atem**

"Pharaoh!" Mana chirped, throwing her hands in the air and squeezing them around me in a playful embrace. "I'm so glad you're ok!"

My gaze was drawn away from the corridor Kaiba had departed down and I patted the apprentice on her back. Reunited with my memories I could now recall a lifetime of sunny greetings to match the dawn and companionable embraces, but my more recent ghostly existence still created a certain 'cognitive dissonance' - an apt term I would have no knowledge of were it not for my time in the living world.

She hugged me tighter, feeling the stiffness of my embrace and released me as I relaxed with her. "Yes, thank you Mana." I smiled at her. Mana nodded enthusiastically and pulled away, winking at Mahad as her hair bounced in time with her fluid movements. Then I was compelled to frown as I glanced around my throne room; or rather its wrecked and ruined remains. The mud of Anubis's magic stained every wall and surface; dripping down the pillars and my throne with slick wet splattering sounds.

"What was that?" Mana questioned, tilting her head to the side in confusion. A complicated question to answer. "Anubis. A sorcerer" I began. "He served my father as a priest of modest skill but was banished from our lands for turning to necromancy."

"Indeed." Mahad agreed as he straightened out his garb from across the room. "He coveted the Millennium Items and turned to the forbidden magic of the dead to mirror their powers."

My champion shook his head slowly, his headdress flapping against his jaw as he did so. I cupped the Millennium Puzzle in my hands, frowning down at the treasure. "To compete with the Millennium Puzzle he created a powerful artifact named the Pyramid of Light." The memory of it made the hair at the nape of my neck stand on end. "A foolish ambition." Mahad nodded as he approached and knelt before me, I suspected checking me over for injuries without wishing to be so overt about it. I grinned at the tactic.

"What is your command, my Pharaoh?" He finally asked, I suspected at ease now that he had confirmed for himself I had escaped the battle unscathed.

"The duel did not end, and so our opponent must still be out there. We cannot allow Anubis a reprieve. He will only use it to build back his power." Of that I was certain.

Mana lifted her foot from the floor and pulled a face as it stuck to the tacky remains of the ooze underfoot. She crinkled her nose and waved it around in the air before straightening up into the picture of false composure. "Is there a counter-spell for all this gunk?" Her eye twitched as a little more of it slid down her foot covering. I raised my eyebrows in surprise at the simplicity of the idea and exchanged an impressed look with Mahad. He coiled a finger against his chin thoughtfully.

"Perhaps."

I had given Seto my permission to study the old research scrolls left behind by Anubis in his exile. Mahad had been less than keen on the idea. I could understand his trepidation. It was not a field of study I would encourage, nor would I undo my father's laws to permit it, but I had trusted Seto as he had explained his interest was only academic. I suspected he was simply in need of something 'to do' with himself now that the Millennium Items were gone and our lives were so peaceful. Allowing him that had seemed the least I could do, but my High Priest was to perform such studies only in the privacy of his own chambers. The papyrus was likely still in his living quarters.

Mahad's head turned back to the chamber he and Isis had left down. Conflict shone in his eyes. "But leaving Kaiba alone here would be reckless…" I spoke slowly, puzzling out the next course of action out loud. "I doubt he will stay in place for long."

"Neither he nor Seto are disposed to being shepherded about." Mahad agreed after a long pause. The statement was a slightly irritated one, yet somehow also brimmed with veiled respect.

I sighed aloud, having no need to hide my feelings from my most loyal magicians.

"Mana." I held the priestess's hand for a moment to command her attention without raising my voice. Her wide eyes eagerly gleamed in the darkness the night had veiled the room in. "Please find Isis in the guest quarters and keep an eye on things." Isis would likely need the back-up sooner or later.

I turned to Mahad. "We shall see if Seto had uncovered anything that may be of use to us." Mana loosely clenched her hands, raising them up to her sides and nodded furiously in understanding. She turned to leave, attempting to mirror Isis's dignified steps before breaking into an enthusiastic run to keep up. And with that we split ways.

The throne room gave way to an enormous outdoor plaza that acted as the thoroughfare between the temple and palace. A procession of sphinx statues lined the immaculate stone walkway as we cut across grand the hypostyle hall in a shortcut that lead towards the entrance to the priest's living chambers. Mahad and I threaded between obelisks and pillars to the center-most chamber and ascended the stone stairway, hearing the sociable murmur of other priests discussing their duties and days as we passed them by. It was a warm sound.

Until it was interrupted by an angry shout.

I needed not even glance to Mahad for back-up as we both spirited ourselves to the doorway in a dead sprint, my cloak whirling against me as I slid to a stop in front of Seto's living quarters and the scene therein.

"A Wingbeat of Giant Dragon!" Kaiba yelled.

What was he thinking?

The specter of an enormous orange dragon appeared at Kaiba's back, flapping it's great wings only once to create a massive vortex of air. It struck Isis squarely, throwing her across the room to collide painfully against the wall on the opposite side of Seto's chambers. She gasped as a spear fell from the weapon rack above her, falling through the air like an executioners axe to almost cleave her in two. With a lunge Isis cleared the falling armament, but only just. A portion of her was robe trapped beneath the blade and tore loudly as my priestess slowly found her feet. She looked furious for a brief moment; her face filling with sort of ravenous rage I had never seen before. I blinked to clear my vision and the expression was gone in an instant. She turned to us, bowing to me as we lingered in the door way. "My apologies, my Pharaoh. I believe he is overtired" gentle contrition echoed in her words. I must have imagined that look of fury. There was certainly no trace of it now. I nodded to Isis, acknowledging her apology.

"What is going on here?" I demanded, shouting more to Kaiba for an explanation as to why he would attack my priestess. I had chosen Isis hoping their relationship in the modern world would calm Kaiba, but he was anything but calmed. Though his expression was composed, his body language was to the contrary. His wide legged stance was a familiar one, it made him look like he had just taken a direct hit to his life points and had yet to recover his normal dueling pose.

Having struck Isis down with it's wings the dragon at his back evaporated into nothingness while Kaiba himself leaned pressed up against the crumbling railing of my High Priest's balcony. A dribble of sweat crawled down from his neck as he stared at Isis with an expression veiled of all emotion.

"Kaiba!" I yelled; this time catching his attention. His eyes slicing away from Isis to stare at me me blankly. My face darkened. How dare he attack my priests. His expression turned stormy in return.

"She tried to throw me off a balcony." He didn't seem to be sarcastic, or taunting in his statement.

"He slipped." Isis countered, gently – speaking more to Kaiba than myself. "I tried to help you. You are in need of rest." She bowed her head and turned her eyes on me, nodding softly.

"I didn't slip!" Kaiba roared back. "And whatever _that_ was, it wasn't '_helping_'!"

"You simply misunderstood my intentions." Isis beseeched Kaiba.

"I didn't _'misunderstand'_ anything!" He countered. A piece of the balcony fell away; the heavy chunk of stone beneath Kaiba's hand dislodging from the rest of the railing and crumbling toward the earth below. He turned briefly to watch it tumble downward and then stood up a little straighter to bring his weight off of the unstable fencing. I took a step toward Kaiba and he warily took a step backwards. That was strange. Kaiba was not one to concede territory. His expression was closed and unrevealing, even as his eyes darted between me and Isis cautiously. "Come away from the balcony." Isis bid him. She outstretched her hand to him, beckoning him to a safety a I knew Kaiba would ignore.

"Something is wrong with her." He gritted out; not taking her eyes off of Isis for a second.

I glanced between the two of them.

I know what I had just seen, but despite witnessing his attack I didn't doubt Kaiba's words. Misunderstanding or not, every line in his body was poised and tensed for a fight. To Kaiba the threat was real; yet Isis was correct. He was exhausted and perhaps confused. Isis lowered her hands peaceably and glanced to me, awaiting my command for how to proceed.

Kaiba's composure slipped into irritation. It would seem this had breached the last of his patience.

"Who are you going to believe?" He demanded. A holographic keyboard flashed uncertainly above Kaiba's Duel Disk. His fingers attacked it, typing something into the device.

He was demanding my trust again. I halted and hesitated. Never before had I felt any difficulty in trusting Kaiba beyond our first encounters. We had fought side by side and battled head on. His card had secured my victory against Marik and shuffling it into my deck as I prepared for that match to begin had been second-nature, thoughtless. Yet not more than two hours earlier he had used the same tactic to goad me into attacking him to end our duel - an attack which had been designed to place me as his captive in the living world. Now he volleyed accusations at one of my loyalest friends; a priestess no less. One whose drive to aid me in my return to the afterlife had been so unwavering she had even been reincarnated to assist me. The circumstances of Kaiba's demand for my belief could not have been worse. From behind me Mahad placed his hand on my shoulder; it weighed me down, as did the silent message it conveyed.

I couldn't give him my trust a second time so easily.

"Kaiba-" I took a step toward him "Just wait a moment -."

"Wrong answer." He interrupted.

"Power override complete." My Duel Disk announced from my side. I stared at it, almost unable to believe Kaiba's brazenness as a power percentage rapidly fell on my device's display while his own was boosted in turn The read out of 82% tumbled downward as Kaiba's matching log swelled in power from 34% to a steady 91%. A hand that had been hovering over his Duel Disk slapped a new card down onto the device's holographic surface.

"Return of the Dragon Lords, revive my Blue-Eye's White Dragon!" He commanded the spell. One of his Blue-Eyes exploded into being in a flash of soft supernatural light and hovered protectively at Kaiba's back just beyond the reaches of the balcony.

Though it was his most beloved monster there was a slow cautiousness with which is held his hand behind his back to her. Without looking away from Ishizu his finger tips connected tentatively against against the dragon's muzzle as she pressed it into his palm. She growled softly, the sound little more than a dragon's whicker. It seemed her encouragement was something Kaiba valued above my own. He reluctantly removed his hand from her.

Kaiba turned away from me with a final look that was full of reproach. "Looks like there's only one thing in this world that I can rely on, Pharaoh." He discarded my name and spat my title as though it were poison coating his tongue. "And it's right behind me." His dragon roared at Kaiba's boast, her thunderous howl assaulting us to prove her master's point.

"Tch!" He snapped, as a speck of white light started peering through a pin-sized hole in his dragon's heart as Seto's spell reasserted itself on the newly summoned monster. He threw a long leg over his dragon's back and mounted her with ease. "Get me out of here." He hastily remarked to the dragon, not bothering to spare a side-ways glance to his most trusted servant; simply accepting that her loyalty was absolute. Blue-Eye's craned her long muscular neck around to check he was seated properly before throwing one final snarl at everyone within the room. The dragon's sleek silhouette flickered alarmingly; for a moment loosing her outer skin to reveal only the holographic outline beneath her scales, and for a split second it almost seemed to flicker out of existence entirely. Kaiba's Duel Disk sparked with each fit. He scowled at the device unhappily before bidding Blue-Eye's take flight with an urgent command of "Let's go."

The dragon growled in response. With a flex of her powerful wings both the dragon and her master were aloft and tearing through the night sky away into the northern desert where the ghost of Kaiba Corporation Headquarters loomed large.

I shouted his name after him.

That had gone poorly. Even by mine and Kaiba's standards, that had gone poorly. For better or worse, in life and in the afterlife, it seemed that Kaiba and I would always be at odds.

"I am sorry, my Pharaoh." Isis bowed before me, collecting the headdress that Kaiba's attack must have blown off from the floor as she did so.

"As am I." I replied, a decision forming as I rode the waves of this situation from ocean depths to sand-covered shore. Her eyebrow perked as she glanced up at me.

"Be still." I commanded, a gleaming golden card struggled to appear at my behest. My Duel Disk's power percentage fell another couple of points to a heavily weakened 7%... Kaiba had drained from it so much without hesitation. Anything to have his way, as always. I would have to make do with what I had left. As my intention solidified in my minds eye my magic rushed up unbidden, eager to fill my Duel Disk with an equally potent power to replace that which Kaiba had just siphoned away for his own purposes. Given form and shape my magic poured into the device, a little uneasy to control after being left dormant and unused for so long. The card blazed as it coalesced from the Duel Disk. Its heat licked at my skin. In my haste I had failed to temper myself. I snagged the card between my fingers, the slight burn of my own magic lashing back at me as I did so. I watched Isis's expression change from a gentle curiosity to a sudden searing scorn. "I call upon the Eye of Truth." I proclaimed.

Isis scrambled to her feet in a manner that was decidedly unlike her and took a step backwards. The Eye of Truth rendered in gold and seeped into shades of red and purple. It hovered in the air between us and through its iris I saw the truth of the matter. Standing behind Isis the Eye revealed the looming shadow of a dark and familiar manipulator. Sphinx Teleia's card was added to the Duel Disk's read out, revealing her position on the field as well as an equip card, Malevolent Nuzzler.

"Your deceit is over, Sphinx Teleia." I noted. The silhouette of the Monster wavered at Isis's shoulders like a veil of darkness and with her deception known she bothered keeping herself hidden no longer. A pity this pantomime had come a moment too late. Knowing Kaiba he would be impossible to deal with the next time I found him.

Isis's face split apart in a cruel and overly wide smirk, an unnatural green hue matching the Nuzzler's leeching into her flawless skin to paint her body the color of the witch on the card. Her finger nails extended into long red tapered claws as she ran her overly-long tongue over them. "Oh little Pharaoh, this has only just begun." She purred, Isis's voice almost warped beyond recognition by the sultry overtones of her deeper voice and foreign accent.

I would not allow her dominion over Isis's body. The spear that had fallen to almost impale her felt natural in my hand and I tightened my fingers around its length to seize her. Yet the Malevolent Nuzzler made her quick. I hadn't been expecting the speed the card granted her and with a slash of her nails against my side she repelled me.

I took a deep breath and centered myself, glad for my previous practice.

As a boy my father had intentionally nicked my skin and made me watch the fallout. He had held my hand and spoken softly to me as I witnessed my blood rush from the wound, telling me to conquer the feeling here and now in the safety of our home so that it may not be inflicted upon me for the first time out in the wilds of the desert or on the battlefield. That cut had been deep but small and attended to by the palace's most capable priests. This gash was longer but also shallower. It would heal quickly.

"Ahahahaha!" She laughed, sounding every bit as mad as her master and a thick layer of Anubis's necrotic sludge bubbled up from the pores of her skin, spreading down her arm and shifting and hardening to create –

"A Duel Disk?"

"But of course." She cooed. "How else are we to finish the Master's battle?" A bubble of sludge popped wetly and from it a black Duel monsters card formed from the rapidly solidifying ooze. She pulled it free, it came loose with a string of gore still attached.

"We shall meet again soon." She ran Isis's tongue over her teeth as she delicately slid her slick card onto the pitch black Duel Disk and in a rush of tar her monster was summoned onto the floor in front of us. Botanical Lion snarled as it grew free of it's summoning stupor, petals and leaves shedding from its huge body as it stalked across all that was left of the balcony. Its wooden body coiled toward the ground in a low prowl and Teleia mounted her beast. With her fingers buried in its leafy mane the monster leapt out of the balcony window, scaling the wall of my palace with ease to disappear into the western cliffs in a flurry of slashing claws and thrashing tail.

"My Pharaoh!" Mahad shouted as I ran toward the balcony. I stopped short. Mahad had been so silent I had scarcely remembered he was with me at all. Even as a Duel Monster incapable of speech I had never felt his presence so distantly that I had forgotten him while he stood by my side. I turned to him, seeing how closely his eyes studied Isis's body as she vanished atop Botanical Lion into the distant cliffs. Of course. His concern for her had likely stayed his hand and words.

"By your leave, I will pursue Isis." He told me. "I can manage Sphinx Teleia."

Yes he could. Quite easily. "I have no doubt of that, my friend." Anticipating my thoughts, he spoke my newest concern aloud. "Seto Kaiba may find the desert difficult to navigate on his own." It was a statement and a suggestion. I easily agreed with that. I smiled, thanking him for making this easy for me; for my champion's stalwart support in all of its forms.

Though I very much doubted he would enjoy being chased after by me, Kaiba was alone in an unknown world. A world that was as equally unprepared for the duelist as he was for it. I could scarcely imagine a person less suited to life in ancient Egypt than Seto Kaiba, nor one more inclined to challenge the idea of being trapped here. It would be better to find him quickly, before more harm could be done to either him or my afterlife.

Mahad bowed to me and paused, deep in thought for but a moment. With a wave of his hand used the spell Magical Pigeon to transform himself into a dove. The sight made me grin. Mana had spent so long perfecting the technique, she would be so pleased to see her master use one of her spells. He sailed out into the night sky on pale white wings to chase down Sphinx Teleia and with a final glance I swept from the room toward the stables, my cloak billowing behind me.


	10. Chapter 10

**Atem**

Hunting Kaiba was a new experience.

He had pursued me across cities, countries and dimensions when demanding a duel. I found with a moments pause that I had no idea where to begin in order to return the favor. His dragon had flown off towards the northern desert. That would have to suffice as my starting point.

The stallion reared and recoiled as I attempted to release him from his stall within the palace stable yard. He fought me, thrashing his head around as I secured his bridle and he whinnied in distress as I climbed onto his back. Though he was young, he wasn't usually prone to such fearful behavior. Perhaps it was the darkness of night or the stiffening wind that was upsetting him.

The moon bathed the sands in a white glow. The reflected light more than enough to see and ride by even at this late hour, though thick dark clouds were rolling in to intermittently block it. My heels pressured the stallion's side and my breath caught in my throat as my horse's first strides took me off guard.

He jostled me atop his back in a way that agitated the slash Sphinx Teleia had landed to my side. A notable red stain had begun to creep its way across the linen of my robes but as I brushed my fingers against the wound very little blood came away on them. Likely it had already clotted. I leaned into my horse's strides a little deeper to avoid disrupting the cut further and the discomfort slipped away with the adjustment. We emerged trotting from the stable yard despite the horse's noisy protests and then I set him cantering out toward the palace gates.

Far beyond the walls and across the horizon the beauty of my lands were now being displaced by fragments of Domino City and the surrounding area.

Half of downtown Domino sat shimmering into existence on the furthest outskirts of my city, with sand and earth abruptly giving way to sidewalks and roads. I could see the main plaza beginning to appear and the partially-formed pyramid-shaped glass roof of the Domino City Aquarium reflected the moonlight. The strange patchwork of places and times was jarring but there was an attractiveness to the conflicting features; the earthy angular sandstone houses of my realm juxtaposed against the bright colors and sleek curving lines of the Kaiba Corporation building.

The new additions to the landscape should have surprised me, but they didn't. I absently wondered why the Gods had seen fit to begin to fold Kaiba's memories into my afterlife, but even as Pharaoh it was not my station to understand the will of the divine. I had named Seto my successor and he had been the Pharaoh of Egypt, my equal, after I was sealed in the Puzzle. Perhaps that was why. Seto's soul was somewhere inside of Kaiba still, though I had no doubt he would deny it until his last remaining breath. I sighed, the sound catching my horse's ears with interest.

I kept my eyes on the sky for any sign of Blue-Eyes, though I doubted I would find one. I was unsure how far Kaiba had flown and how easily I would be able to reach him once I found him. Knowing him he'd have flown his dragon to the highest point on the landscape to brood and that would coincidentally be the top of the newly formed KaibaCorp building.

With a dragon at his side or not, Kaiba was a mad fool to be wandering outside the palace like this. He knew nothing of my world or my people, but that hadn't stopped him.

Much like the new buildings, his stubbornness also didn't surprised me. Yet even angry as he had made me earlier and tossing his most recent kidnapping attempt aside, he was not just a rival but also a friend and I couldn't allow him to wander the desert alone with an enemy loose. Regardless of whatever reckless solution to his current predicament his was stirring up, I would be there to temper him. The decision to do so was familiar and oddly comfortable.

The streets of the city surrounding my palace were empty at this hour. The stallion and I charged through them and toward what remained of the desert beyond slowing only as the uniform blanket of the sands glittered strangely around an oddly shaped void.

My fear of being unable to catch up to him melted away as I passed the adequately Kaiba-sized hole in the sand. The long legs of the otherwise innocuous imprint gave it away. I could predict what had happened. Blue-Eyes had flickered and wavered as it had flown toward the horizon just as Kaiba's face down card had earlier in the duel against Anubis. It was sensible to guess that Kaiba's faulty Duel Disk had been unable to sustain his beloved monster for long and it had vanished before him. I could only imagine the rage with which he had hit the ground. The brightness of the night sky shone light and shadows across the sand, caressing each dip he had left behind. Kaiba's boot prints leading away from the site were equally as unmistakable, but could quickly be covered by the stormy wind that threatened to roll in. I nudged the stallion onward, following the trail as it appeared before me.

I expected he wouldn't be far. For such a tall man, Kaiba had a habit of walking slowly. If I closed my eyes I could recall his usual unhurried saunter as though watching it in front of me: coat tails flying rebelliously against the wind, or lack thereof. The subdued pace was doubtless a habit developed for Mokuba's sake, but it made it easy to keep up with him in the slim stretches of time we'd spent together outside of duels.

As though to defy me even from a distance it seemed this time he'd covered a lot of ground quite quickly.

I pumped the reigns, urging the stallion to slow to a stop as the compacted sand of my city's streets ebbed away further into the desert. The thick sand had snarled up and consumed the rest of Kaiba's bootprints. His trail looked as though he had ignored KaibaCorp all together to march further out into the dunes but without more prints to track there was no way to tell for certain. It seemed unlikely Kaiba would forsake heading into his own headquarters in favor of the Egyptian wastes.

I had lost his trail.

I needed new direction. No sooner had the desire to find Kaiba fully coalesced in my mind than the Duel Disk on my arm flared to life, a spinning coil twisting snake-like in the air a few inches above my arm and reforming into a compass. Ironic; the device was keen to obliged me in a way its creator would never have done without a fight.

The stallion caught sight of the hologram in his peripheral vision and bucked in agitation. Patting his neck and speaking softly calmed him as I wrestled with the less cooperative compass. With a moments orientation it found a mark, pointing me outwards across the desert sand. I followed its lead without debate, unsurprised when it yielded the desired result.

The moonlight found him first - its white light dappled over his coat to make it gleam in the distance like a dragon's scale. Upon finding that single glowing white mark on the horizon I spurred my horse to pick up the pace, charging over the mountainous dunes toward him.

He glanced over his shoulder at the sound of my approach and huffed as I drew up along side him, the wind stirring up to buffet against us both as my horse stopped at his side.

"Go away."

The greeting was standoffish but nowhere near as venomous as I had been anticipating after reuniting with him. It seemed that for now the wellspring of his anger may have run dry. He was tense and tired. His eyes swept over the desert behind me as his muscles clenched. He was ready for a fight; the grim look on his face telling me without words he'd make it as terrible and damaging as he possibly could.

"You were correct. Sphinx Teleia has possession of Isis's body." There was no point in casting vagaries around the subject. It was better to address it now and be done with it. I doubted Kaiba would soon forgive me for what he perceived to be even a momentary doubt of his word. He was arrogant enough to demand my unequivocal faith in him just so he throw it back in my face in the name of ill-conceived gambits and seemed to think himself obliged to it even if he had no intention of ever giving me his trust in return.

"The Duel Monster? Fake Ishizu is possessed by a Duel Monster?" bored incredulousness was plain in his tone. How it was that he could accept certain things like the fate of the world hanging on the outcome of what his modern society thought of as a card game with such ease, while taking issue with things many times less preposterous was profoundly vexing.

"Yes." He rolled his left shoulder curiously, seeming too distracted by the odd motion to acknowledge my concession. It took him a moment of scowling at the offending body part before he replied. Distraction tempered him. "Hn. I told you so."

He hadn't, not explicitly. He'd accused Isis of attempted murder and then jumped out of a window without giving any more context than that. I could have disagreed but instead I nodded, silently thankful that the whole thing hadn't become a subject for a much larger argument.

Atop the stallion's back I was taller than Kaiba and I found the new sight of looking down at him - and him up at me- was strange. It gave me much better view of his eyes. Against the midnight backdrop they looked as dark as the clouds overhead. Flecks of sand peppered his hair. My assumption he had fallen from his dragon seemed on course to be proven correct. At my concession the tension in his body slowly leeched out of his muscles and his shoulders stiffly relaxed in a manner that was quite obvious. His height most likely shielded the habit from most people's view.

"Dramatic, much?" He taunted tonelessly as my horse half-heartedly reared in place and began to count at the sand with his hooves, still tossing his head backwards and forwards in agitation. I stayed in place on his back effortlessly, loosening the reigns and letting him prance about on the spot.

Despite his mocking tone, his stare was missing an edge of aggressiveness. He averted his eyes to grimace at the horse beneath me as the stallion swatted Kaiba's arm with the mad tossing of his mane. Scowling at the stallion with all the wary suspicion a man would normally give a spitting cobra, Kaiba took a subtle step back away from the horse and raised his head to address me once more. I wonder if he found the reversal of positions equally strange.

"So why are you here?" He demanded bluntly, expression as closed as ever. I had been wanting to level that same question back at him all day. "Come all this way just to tell me that I'm right, cos' I already knew that." He smirked smugly.

I patted the stallion's neck as he began to calm and he softly whickered. "It's the middle of the night and you're wandering around the desert alone with enemies waiting to strike out against us." I replied, refusing to rise to his challenge and making sure my tone was as full of reprimand as I could make it. "Whatever ill-advised scheme you're looking to embark upon, it can wait until morning."

"No it can't" He snapped back, quicker than a whip. He held up his damaged Duel Disk. "I'm fixing this, crushing Anubis and getting out of here." He lowered his arm, brushing a few stray pieces of sand caught in the device's smooth angular lines out of the crevices. "You want me gone and I want to be gone. Stay out of my way and we both get what we want." He sneered. He turned his back to me and continued walking.

"And the sooner I'm out of here, the sooner you can go back to playing house." He called over his shoulder as he gestured towards the fragmented version of Domino that was slowly emerging in the distance "And all that goes away."

"Kaiba." I started, leaving the name out there as an opening move. His words were so prickly it was easy to get cut on them. I brushed them aside, looking for something to say that might begin to appease him enough to come back with me. "I don't 'want you gone'." I replied firmly, enunciating the phrase he had used slowly, deliberately. He paused, peering at me over his shoulder. "I was glad to see you. I still am." Something flashed through his eyes and he stared at me unblinking. "I had thought I wouldn't ever get the chance to duel you again." I added. He didn't give a reaction but stayed silent and still as though waiting for me to continue. Perhaps it was a trick of the starlight, or the higher vantage point, but something in his gaze shifted to look cautiously hopeful. "Until you attempted to force my hand." I finished sternly, unable to leave his actions unchallenged. That look promptly vanished under a glower.

He muttered something so quietly I couldn't make it out over the rising wind and swiped his head away from me to scowl across the landscape, a bruise from the blow I'd landed on his cheek contrasting against his pale skin. My punch had been unexpected, even to me. Yugi's calm temper had largely filtered out such basic physical impulses. Here, in the face of Kaiba's wilful deafness I had tapped into a more primitive outlet for my anger. I would not allow that to happen again.

I pulled my horse up beside him once more.

"I shouldn't have hit you." I noted, the words halting and awkward. It was petty, but I couldn't bring myself to apologize to Kaiba after his earlier attempt to expel me from my own world... and with the new additions to it born from his brashness.

"What?" He grunted in surprise at the change of topic.

The bruise didn't look so bad, though I recalled he had wiped away blood from his mouth after the hit. I hadn't been concerned about that at the time, but Anubis had put Kaiba's body through much in the last few hours.

"May I see?" I asked. Kaiba's eyes narrowed as though expecting this to be some sort of trick but he didn't move away, even as I lifted my hand toward him. I reached out to his chin, angling his head toward me to get a better look. Kaiba flinched at first contact and shot the iciest glare he could muster my way. He warily pulled against my hold before reluctantly allowing me to manipulate him. I was surprised he did.

"Admiring your handy work?" he sneered.

"Striking you was a mistake." I answered. One I wouldn't make again in the future.

Through the side of his eyes he stared at me, drawing them so thin in suspicion they looked almost snake-like. I ran the pad of my thumb over the bruise, unsure what to say. He swallowed thickly, his lips parting a little as he scowled uncertainly, still tense and resistant in my grip.

"I was surprised you could reach" he eventually taunted with a little smirk. I frowned at his jeer, deeply unhappy with the impulsive action. "I've had worse. I can take anything you can dish out." Kaiba added, as though it would set me at ease.

It didn't. His words painted me as an enemy. Though we had started out on those terms, the idea of some part of him still clinging to that dynamic stung. His semi-hostile glare didn't help. Had our friendship not evolved with every step of our journey? I could trust in Kaiba to clutch so tightly to his old hatreds. I had hoped he was trying to be become better than that.

"Now get off me." He hissed, jerking away from me so suddenly the stallion beneath me spooked at the action. Kaiba threw the animal a filthy look before backing away from both of us.

That brought me back to my purpose.

"Can you ride?" I questioned, eyebrow slightly raising in genuine curiosity. A dragon of his own holographic creation and control was no substitute for a real animal with its own wants and fears. Kaiba had seemingly inherited Seto's ability to read the languages of my time and Seto himself was a fine horseman. Perhaps the skill had been passed to Kaiba. The stallion was strong enough to spirit both of us back to the palace with ease.

He leveled a look at the stallion beneath me that was at best 'skeptical' and at worst 'hateful'.

"I'm not going back and I'm not getting on that" came the matter-of-fact reply. He turned and continued walking to whatever it was he was journeying towards. I nudged the stallion's sides so he walked on, keeping a level pace beside Kaiba.

He hadn't answered my question.

"Helicopters and aircraft are no issue, but you draw the line at a horse? I suppose he isn't dragon-shaped enough for your tastes?" I ventured, wanting to ruffle his feathers and feeling smug that my blow landed as he replied with a toneless "Tch".

"I don't trust any mode of transport with its own brain." he leered at the stallion and stepped aside to put distance between his feet and the horse's dancing hooves "Especially if its the size of a walnut."

His expression was as stoney as ever, but his eyes kept darting from the horizon to the stallion and then back again. 'Nervous' was not a word I associated with Kaiba, but the dirty side glances he shot like bullets at my horse were difficult to categorize as anything else. The stallion echoed Kaiba's anxiety with his own; his ears pricking forward and then darting back to lie flat against his neck.

I followed Kaiba's eyes as they flickered forward again to rove over the landscape. A lapse in my concentration was all it took for the unbroken stallion to try to seize the moment for himself.

Planting his hooves in the sand he reared up and whinnied loudly before slamming his front hooves back down and bucking in quick succession. I had seen him do this to throw the horse trainers, but never had he tried it with me on his back. In a white flash Kaiba lunged out of the way of the horse's hooves, cursing loudly. I rode through the rebellion with little trouble, gently feathering the reigns to bring him back under my control before Kaiba's angry shout set him off again.

"Get off that thing!" He yelled.

I had no idea what was upsetting the stallion so much, but there was no calming him. He had near enough just trampled Kaiba.

I swung my leg over his back and allowed gravity to guide my feet back to the desert sand. Even dismounted, the stallion's snorts and jumps continued. I was reluctant to remove his bridle; reluctant to set him loose, but if he bolted and the reigns caught around his legs it could cost him his life. The decision was familiar and bittersweet. Was it my fate to let go of everything and everyone, even here in my own afterlife? To wrestle between keeping a companion and freeing them to live a life I was not destined to be part of? I restrained a frown. Just like all my friends, I had to trust him to go on without me. Perhaps if the gods were willing I would find him tomorrow in his stall in the palace stable.

I pulled the headband over his ears in one smooth motion, removing the bridle and tossing it aside. With a distressed whicker the stallion nudged his muzzle against my arm before turning on his tail and galloping away toward the palace. I smiled hesitantly. It seemed he was not leaving me for a life in the wild after all.

"Size of walnut or not, at least he knows his way home." I observed. Fondness colored my words. Kaiba snorted coltishly.

"What do you think I'm doing out here? Building sand castles?" came the terse retort from beside me, the taller duelist approaching me now that the stallion was speeding away into the distance. "Once I've fix my Duel Disk I'm winning this and going home." His voice carried a tinge of anger from having almost been struck down and he grunted before stalking off again, the harsh wind tossing his coat and my cape.

I stood still and watched as the stallion vanished from my sight into the shadows cast by the thick clouds that swarmed the sky. As his graceful gallop was enveloped by the darkness of the landscape I turned to follow Kaiba.

I was not his vassal or his brother and refused to jog after him as they would have done. Kaiba seemed to have anticipated this. He crossed his arms and waited silently for me to reach his side atop the peak of the next dune, eyes watching me like a desert hawk. I took my time ascending the dune and smirked as his expression grew more irate with each and every unhurried step.

He shook his head slightly and feigned boredom as I arrived at his side.

I was about to ask him what he was out here looking for, but found the words were unnecessary. From atop the dune's summit I spotted the sleek metal form of one of Kaiba's creations wallowing in the moonlight. We set off toward it in tandem without needing to exchange another word.

**Teleia**

Botanical Lion snarled so I ran my fingers across his exquisite oaken flesh to calm him. I missed my leonine form. Its gorgeous pelt. Its sharp claws. It had been a treat to finally have a body every bit as predatory as my beautiful hungry heart. Creating a new lion to ride upon had been a natural decision.

"What is, my lovely?" I questioned him, bucking his muzzle with heel of my hand. He shook his great head, a plump ruby metal plucking free to flutter to the floor like a lover's undergarment.

A fat white bird sailed into the cave, flapping it's wings above my head as it landed against the wall of the shallow little cliff-side cavern. "What a brave little bird." I cooed, counting my blessings that my next meal had delivered itself to me with such convenience. My lion continued to bare it's teeth. "It's mine!" I roared at it, the botanical beast taking a sharp step backwards away from me. Frightened of it's own master? How quaint. It best be. The bird was mine! Mine to devour and mine alone!

"Control yourself." The dove said sternly, deeply spoken words rumbling out of its stubby yellow beak.

The voice of Ano's new host was easy to recognize even when spouting out of his transformed body. I believe I preferred it when he had the head of a lion. At least then he could do little more than growl. The words that came out of his mouth were so very dull.

"Pah. It's you." I greeted, disappointment at a feast denied flying free and unchecked in my tone.

"What were you thinking?" He questioned, accusation in his tone and quite unnecessary and woefully amusing in his tiny avian form.

I buffed my long tapered fingernails against the priestess's robe. I'd have to find one that exposed a little more flesh. "I cannot read your simple mind, Ano. Speak it or be silent."

"Why attack Seto Kaiba?" He demanded. "You should have waited for him to fall asleep. Or poison him. Are you not an alchemist?"

Alchemist, botanist, chemist. He may have guessed at my past but had no understanding of me at all!

"Killing him in his sleep would have been boring. I wanted to see those pretty blue eyes flare and dim as I took his life." I hummed.

Ano had no imagination, of course he would not be able to understand the work of an artist. "And poison requires planning. I was working in the moment that the Gods served me." He underestimated me, ignoring the fine blow I had stuck before making my exit. Ano's eyes narrowed as I quirked my lips at him and pulled them back. A smile was but a baring of teeth, after all.

"You revealed yourself, and almost me, far too soon." Ano drawled. "The Master will punish you for this."

"Oh, I hope so." The Master's punishments were so delectable, though of course he would need a body first to 'discipline' me in the manner I craved. "If he is to walk in the living world then we must find a way to restore him." I mused.

It would take the collection of an enormous amount of life energy to give my Master form once more.

Without the Pyramid of Light that would be difficult, but not impossible. That trinket had increased my Master's natural sorcery and made the collection of life energy much easier, but the lack of its presence could well be circumvented.

"**Bleed them dry." **The master bid me, his command echoing in my very soul.

The Master's voice was so faint and distant, so drained by his defeat in the palace that he barely clung to his current sliver of existence. How sad.

To say a single word seemed costly; to string together several, well now, that seemed almost beyond him. Yet here he was, whispering still in my ear, reminding me not to stray from the path that would return him to glory. Of course I would not, though I may well bend it to my own delight. He would have to indulge me that much.

Ano nodded at the disembodied command.

"Yes, Master." He replied dutifully. Predictable.

I returned to the task at hand. "We must weaken the Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba and pull away the living essence from their bodies." I summarized, understanding the Master's instruction without elaboration.

Yes, that was the best way. Let them summon their beasts so that we might rip them apart in a glorious harvest. Let them expend their life energy against us. As agents of Anubis each cut we carved into their skin and drop of blood we shed would feed our Master's return to physicality. We could achieve this - not in a single duel as Anubis had - but at a more moderate pace. We were our Master's champions, after all.

Once they were broken, bloodied and wounded the Master would have no difficulty in claiming victory of this contest for life and in doing so, return to the living world.

I was excited to see it again. To run free through the streets and tear the delicate, sumptuous flesh from the bones of real beings. Yes, yes! Shedding the body of this priestess and being re-summoned in the living world would be a glorious reward for my loyalty.

"'_We_' must do nothing." Ano countered.

"Oh?"

"'_You_' have revealed yourself, so you shall pursue them. I shall remained hidden."

"Pah!" Shadowing the Pharaoh and playing the role of his dutiful little champion gave him an invaluable opportunity to strike when he least expected, but it was cowardly. I didn't care for it.

I waved my hand at him, unimpressed. "Fine." Did he believe leaving them to me was some sort of punishment? Oh no, he was mistaken. There was just more prey left for me to play with! It was risky, yes. The young king was the most powerful sorcerer in this world. I could not forget that and become careless. The Master had already tried and failed to overthrow the Pharaoh three times and it was clear I would need a weakness to exploit if there was to be any hope at besting him and Seto Kaiba both.

Fortunately I was better at creating solutions that Ano seemed to believe. His lack of faith in my abilities was so terribly amusing.

"Well then, I shall get underway." I cooed, placating my Master and Ano both.

"Good. Do." Ano replied. He flapped his wings experimentally, priming his feathers for flight. No doubt he intended to watch and gather his precious insights while I fought our foes head on. The rat.

I tapped my finger against my lips in thought.

How best to begin?

Divide them and then hunting them down when they were alone and unsuspecting had an appeal. Playing more with Seto Kaiba also stirred my interest. His prudish reaction to my seduction had been an unexpected treat. The absence of trust between the two boys was also prime for abuse. Perhaps with a little stimulus they might even fight each other on my behalf?

Such choices. Each as varied and delectable as the last.

I ran my tongue over my teeth. "I will start with something simple to test the thickness of their fat."

A fluttering storm of scarabs would be perfect.


	11. Chapter 11

**Kaiba**

He circled around the pod with interest.

I let him do whatever he wanted. I'd messed up his private afterlife and now he had skyscrapers ruining the view from his dirt castle. This wasn't what was supposed to happen and until I fixed it he had every right to be pissed at me, though like hell I'd tell him that. It didn't matter that Pegasus had set me up and the Egyptian gods were bullshit, I would own the consequences of my actions. I always did.

If he wanted to circle the pod then he could circle the pod. If he wanted to punch me in the face then he could punch me in the face. Once. If he wanted to inspect the damage then he could do that too.

I ran my fingers over the tender spot on my cheek, retracing the movement of his fingertips, wondering why I had bothered to chart their course so vividly in my mind. Whatever. It didn't matter. The whole scene had been just surreal; charging up to me on some half feral horse with his cape flying and his hair stranding on end. His jewelry had flashed in the moonlight and the skirt of his tunic had rumpled half way up his thighs as his muscles flexed to keep the horse from running off. He looked like something out of the novel of a lonely house wife.

Completely distracting.

I was damn glad to get rid of the horse. Letting it run off into the desert didn't seem smart but whatever put as much distance between me and that eleven hundred pounds of crazy suited my purposes. Atem seemed confident the thing would find its way back.

Yeah, right.

He completed his inspection and came to stand beside me as I swore.

The wind had ripped off part of the tarp. Two of the fasteners had popped loose. It wasn't enough to expose the whole pod, but the draft had managed to blow at least two feet of sand into the cockpit. I pulled the cover away enough to get a better look. Most of it had collected in the seat and the instruments looked largely sand-free. I scooped up a handful, weighing it in my palm. It wouldn't take long to clear most of it out.

Part of the sand in the cockpit shifted slightly and my body reacted before I even had time to fully register the threat.

I must have looked like a fucking idiot, suddenly jumping three feet backwards. "What the-!" I heard myself yell. Atem glanced into the cockpit with a muted curiosity and then fucking smirked back at me.

Gozaburo had 'conditioned' me not to react to outwardly fear... But it was a training that applied to man-made terrors. In his own way Atem had helped with the rest. The nightmares of his penalty games had toughened my resistance to all the other kinds of 'monster' Gozaburo's training had missed, but there was still a special place in hell for arachnids.

"Come now Kaiba, it's just a little scorpion." His smug tone made me want to hit something, and the challenging taunt made me want to want to throw the thing down the back of his tabard and see how he liked it. Who willfully adds something like that into their own afterlife? That question was good enough to ask.

"Why are there scorpions in 'heaven'?" I managed to hiss out from between my teeth, making sure to make my tone as scornful as physically possible.

Atem's smug look shifted slightly, his eyes opening a little wider in surprise at the question before narrowing into pensiveness. So he didn't know either then. Wasn't that just great. "I don't control what's here." He settled on. I guess that explained Ishizu and the rest of the odd cast of misfit minions, and the lack of Yugi and his entourage. Now that was something to be thankful for. If I ever had to listen to another one of their simpering, sycophantic bullshit friendship sermons I would hit something.

I snorted, amused. "Nice to know death's as much of a scam as life." He remained silent.

I suppressed a shudder as Atem leaned into the cockpit and deftly plucked out the scorpion by its tail. He did it easily - it was a well practiced motion. It was unsettling. He could get a tan, wear loincloths and parade around in mountains of tacky golden jewelry but it was only now after seeing how suited he was to the environment that his Egyptian heritage seemed credible to me. I found the thought uncomfortable so I pushed it away.

Atem knelt down to place the scorpion gently onto the desert sand. "Seto doesn't care for them either" he noted, watching the scorpion begin to creep away. I chose not to dignify that with an answer. I'd already settled in my mind that me and my fake couldn't be the same - it was his turn to wake up and catch a clue.

It took me two strides to get in range and I kicked the fucking thing as hard as I could, launching it into the distance like a golf ball. Like hell I was allowing it to crawl anywhere near my equipment.

Atem's eyes followed it as the scorpion jetted off on it's all-inclusive surprise one way flight to nowhere. I thought he'd shout at me for that, but he didn't.

There was a pause. A lull. It weird space where it felt like something should go.

It reminded me of fixing the VCR at the orphanage only to end up with two extra screws and a big hole in the middle of it. 'Fix' was a generous word, looking back. It hadn't magically started working again after I played around with it, but since it had already been broken it didn't really seem to matter if I messed it up more. Thanks to sizable bi-annual donations from the old KaibaCorp there had been just enough spare cash kicking around to replace the thing since it was part of the staff lounge, but somehow never enough for thicker bed sheets, proper insulation on the windows or fixing the radiator in the boys dorm. I hated the cold. I caught a bead of sweat with my thumb and wiped it away before it could slide any further down my neck. I hated this heat too. The afterlife needed a climate control system.

A chill was setting in as the desert began to cool at night. It would be easier to fix my Duel Disk while it was cooler, that was for sure. I didn't need the screw driver slipping out of my sweaty hands to gore me in the eye or something equally stupid.

My fingers reflexively brushed aside my jacket to get at the chest pocket without a second thought. That made me pause.

Looks like I'd officially made a 'habit' out of it then. That was the sign that it was time to give it up after all this nonsense was over with. I pulled out the KC branded lighter and matching cigarette case. This coat was tailored recently - it had a pocket specifically designed to fit the slim aluminum box without altering the fit of the material against my body. I hadn't even noticed it was still in there.

I took a long slow drag and huffed the smoke out into the breeze like a dragon, watching the wind carry it away.

There was a rustle of linen behind me. I glared at Atem just for just existing. His eyes narrowed in challenge, before flicking to the cigarette in my mouth. He arched an eyebrow at that.

"You smoke now?" He questioned, taking his eyes off the offending object to surveil our surroundings like a lion observing his domain. His tone sounded scolding which was rich. What did he think he knew about me anyway?

"Maybe I've always smoked." I snapped back, the taste of an argument sounded really palatable right now and I did not want to be lectured about this by someone who for all intensive purposes must now be younger than me. I smirked, bitterly at the ridiculousness of the thing. It's not like I couldn't afford the habit.

"No, you haven't" he relied so simply that it was insulting. He frowned, watching me for a moment. I had to curb the urge to blow smoke in his face just to piss him off. Might even take away the smell of horse sweat while I was at it.

"You don't look or smell like you do" he observed as his feet kneaded the sand beneath him, then he smirked at me like he was about to reveal a winning card. "You don't care what others think, so you must have started recently and are still going to lengths to hide it from Mokuba."

"Tch. Lucky guess." Scowling at him could only communicate so much of my irritation that he'd figured all that out so quickly. Smoking was a habit I didn't want Mokuba thinking was worth picking up. Roland was the only one who knew so far. His sunglasses had saved him from immediate dismissal because I swore he raised his eyebrows at me from behind them like I was some lowlife teenage punk acting out.

"There's no 'luck' necessary, Kaiba" Atem mocked with a smug grin.

"Whatever." I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of my reaction.

We leaned back against the pod to watch the moon in silence. His smug banter felt much easier than most of our other conversations today had been, or maybe that was just the nicotine going to work. Might as well summon a monster or two to break up all the calm before things start to feel 'relaxed'.

The device on my arm flashed as I thought about it. I was going to blame that on the damage to the unit interfering with the signal feed to the neural up-link until Atem's did the same beside me; though his was able to successfully render the holographic UI to tell us why.

We exchanged a glance before he nodded and began swiping through the Duel Disk's logs.

"A card was just played." He observed.

I waited for him to tell me what it was as he frowned at the read out. "Sphinx Teleia has activated Swarm of Scarabs." The display closed down at his unspoken instruction.

"Sounds biblical." I muttered; every bit as sarcastically as possible. Swarm of Scarabs was a one thousand defense power monster; small potatoes. "Blue-Eyes can deal with that in one shot." Blue-Eyes could deal with that three times over in one shot, the math being what it was.

"I think it may take a few more shots than that." Atem noted, his tone conversational but distracted as he peered off at something on the horizon. A wave of something thick and fragmented was darkening the sand and clouds over the desert to the east, increasing with size as it gained ground toward us and churning uneasily in the moonlight.

"A sandstorm?"

He stood staring at the rapidly encroaching shadow as it ripped across the dunes, completely captivated. I remembered that feeling, the feeling of being held in place enraptured by the terrible might of an unbridled force of nature. It was how I'd felt at our very first duel as he had brought the monsters to life before my eyes. I suppose in that analogy, Atem had been the sandstorm. That figured.

"I don't believe so." He finally replied.

Yeah I got his point– sandstorms didn't usually buzz as they got closer. Atem's arm snaked to his Duel Disk, a card generating for him instantly. I had no doubt what he was thinking would do the job and all – probably Dust Tornado or Mystical Space Typhoon – but I wanted to test a theory. He stilled as I caught his wrist in my hand and looked back at me questioningly. "This duel mode only lets you use each card in your deck once, so save your card. I wanna test something."

His dueling pose relaxed and whatever it was he'd drawn vanished in a small burst of of golden light. "I wanna know how long a card can be summoned for before it automatically de-spawns." I explained.

Even free form dueling mode had limits; I'd designed it that way deliberately to avoid misuse or damaging the components of the Duel Disks. Ten minutes was the maximum time for a single summoning to last and since right now the monsters couldn't figure out if they were going to be real biological lifeforms or holograms it would figure that my limiters would be thrown to the wind. Not to mention that though it was due to my faulty Duel Disk, Blue-Eye's surprise disappearance could have been fatal if I'd been any higher in the air and not over a gigantic sandbox. This was as good an opportunity to test that threshold out as any.

"What do you propose?" Atem asked, blinking at me slowly, the picture of calm despite the low and steadily building hum of a cloud of pissed off flesh-eating insects.

I jabbed my thumb over my shoulder to the pod behind us.

"Will it protect us?" He asked, raising an eyebrow slightly.

"Are you kidding?" I hoped he was kidding. My pod was designed for space travel, like hell it couldn't stand up to a couple of bugs. Just exactly what sort of amateur engineer did he take me for? That set my teeth on edge.

"Don't underestimate me." I snapped, taking a final drag before throwing the rest of my cigarette away.

I snatched up the back of his tunic in my hand and yanked him toward the pod, pushing him through the gap in the tarp to fall haphazard into the cockpit. He righted himself as he collided with the seat, composing the layers of his outfit back into place. He shot me a reproachful look before scooting over, giving me the chance to climb in after him and secure the fasteners for the tarpaulin sheet back into place to seal the cockpit shut. If the wind really had popped off the toggles the first time then I'd need to keep an eye on them, but the seemed to be holding together reliably as of right now.

I held the edges of the pod's chassis as the swarm hit. The sound of thousands of wings beating howled over the tarpaulin barrier, shaking it in place and raging against it but unable to pierce or dislodge the opaque sheet. I relaxed a little into my half of the seat, then recoiled as I remembered the very sand I was now sat in had the potential to be scorpion-infested.

"If there were any more in here they'd have made their presence known." Atem commented idly as I arched my body off of the seat to check. That was fine for him to say since he was sat on the bit without any fucking sand, but like hell I was going to debase myself anymore by writhing around like a hooked fish trapped between the tarp above us and the seat below.

Atem shifted busily, distracted as he tried to wrangle the folds of his cloak into looking dignified. I guess all that natural poise wasn't so effortless after all. That amused me, until I spotted the hatch to the cargo hold was on his side. Damn it.

Reaching across a half-naked guy wasn't an appealing proposition. His skirt was riding up high enough to bare his muscular upper thighs and I was running the risk of seeing something I really didn't want to. I found it awkward – though I'd never tell him that - he didn't even seem to care that he was half-exposed.

"Lean back." I told him and he did it without much of a second thought, still preening as he did so.

I leaned over him and stretched out to reach the cargo compartment on his side of the pod. It brought me much closer to him than I would have liked; close enough to smell the musky notes of his sweat and his slightly sweet honeyed breath under the stink of horses. I hovered in his personal space as I reached out across his body, close enough to hear his breathing hitch a little for who knows why. He probably hated the closeness as much as I did.

My fingers probed the vault cavity and as they failed to snag the thing I was expecting them to find I leaned a little further over Atem so I could actually see inside. I shivered a little as his breath ghosted across my ear, not familiar enough with the strange ticklish feeling it elicited to squash the feeling right out of the gate.

Just get the job done.

I gritted my teeth as I glared into the small cargo area and finally managed to catch the handle of the compact toolkit between my fingers. I threw myself back into the seat. He side-eyed me for a minute with an expression I didn't care to try and figure out as I popped the case open and then went to town on my Duel Disk with one of the smaller screwdrivers. It took a few minutes to pry the chassis away from the unit and a few more to properly survey the damage.

The Duel Disk was a mess.

I could patch the wires; maybe even over-clock the visual processor to get it back up and functioning at normal levels despite the damage, but I had no way of fixing the smashed blades of the internal fan. It was too small and too specialized. I'd designed it myself and without a 3D printer there was no way of replacing it. Great. So much for preventing overheating.

I pried the visual processor out of its mounting and shucked it out of its insulation. It was functional, but highly unstable. I'd have to be careful what I tried to summon. My dragons and larger monsters were processor intensive which knocked out the majority of my deck from play except for the trap and magic cards. Despite the power I'd siphoned off of Atem's Duel Disk, summoning my Blue-Eyes even temporarily had drained the system. It had been worth it though. Whatever was going on here to make the holograms come alive I had to admit that it had made my dragon just perfect. Just like it ought to be. Blue-Eyes had been so warm, despite being a giant winged lizard, and its wings had been so powerful. I could barely believe it let me actually ride on its back.

Stupid as it was, I'd been waiting for that dragon ride my whole life.

It had made hitting the sand face-first as Blue-Eyes vanished underneath me a whole lot worse. That sudden disappearance had shaken me up. For a solid minute after I hadn't been able to move, hadn't been able to speak, I'd been pinned down by my own thoughts. The thought that of all the things to randomly disappear on me in my life I hadn't expected my Blue-Eyes to ever fall into that category. Or not again, anyway. Not after the forth rejected me.

Just like my Kaiser Sea Horse, the malfunction of my Duel Disk had made the cards de-spawn without every being destroyed. _Technically_ both of them were still on the field and in the game. _Technically_ if I could juice up my Duel Disk enough I could call back my dragon... but I couldn't stand the idea of watching it fade away from me again. The risk outweighed the reward. Once I was back in the real world I'd come up with a more stable alternative - maybe design a whole new jet to have any hope at recapturing the feeling. Something with seat belts and a spot for Mokuba.

The power counter ticked down to 13% as the systems diagnostic sapped out everything that was left. It hadn't been so processor intensive in tests but everything here seemed to be out to fuck with me. Whatever. Once the sun was up the solar panels would recharge the units, until then we'd have to play smart.

I set it to run a second systems diagnostic and restart.

Atem shifted beside me. I was determined to ignore him. I didn't like people other than Mokuba sitting so close to me, though I'd endured it enough throughout my life to know distracting myself was the way to go. I tried staring out of the window as the swarm passed us by and instead ended up covertly watching Atem in the reflection.

He was almost done flattening and straightening out his outfit to his liking. His fingers flexed purposefully and worked at the juncture where his cape hung from his shoulders. Each fingernail was clipped a bit shorter than I remembered but the digits were no less long and powerful. The motion of them drawing cards or pointing his monsters forward to battle was something I was pleased to have managed to replicate in the AI version of him. It was part of the show; part of the package. Atem gently began pulling and stroking the material over his shoulders to make it lie smoothly. They seemed broader here than they had been in Domino, or possibly they were the same but the added muscle and tone just made them look that way. Then again, that had been Yugi's body; this was most certainly not.

The absolutely impossible hair was the same - still looking more like it belonged as plumage on the tail of a genetically engineered peacock rather than a human head. His eyes were different, but they always had been. Yugi's wide-eyed kiddy look always gave him away. Atem's were darker, deeper, edging between tones of bordeaux and blood. Then of course there was the completely foreign complexion. I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. I was used to seeing him look a certain way; it was logical a day with him like this couldn't override years of previous conditioning. It made him look alien and exotic. It made all this Egyptian nonsense impossible to ignore.

Not that there was any chance of ignoring it now that I was here, stuck with him.

I crossed my arms and he crossed his legs as I sat back, leaning into my half of the leather interior while he perched equally uncomfortably on his half of the seat. The pod was only designed for a single occupant so it was a damn good thing both of us had a tidy body weight. Our knees were touching in an arrangement that pleased neither of us but the breadth of our shoulders meant they were the only other parts of us to jostle against each other. Because he was such a short-ass his shoulders ended up digging into my side instead.

Well this was fucking cozy.

We sat in silence, watching the tarp above our heads flutter and strain as the swarm whistled over it. It was uncomfortable. Atem was watching me out of the corner of his eye and pretending not to which wasn't helping.

Ridiculous. This was the guy I had risked coming here to duel again, but without a battlefield between us I wasn't even sure I wanted to say anything to him. I'd hunted him, visualized him, analyzed every memory of every part of him in my mind to rebuild him in holograms and then worked on him for nights on end until the proxy was so life-like it could pass the Turing test and then lecture me on the validity of including Kuriboh in a championship Duel Monsters deck. I'd probed my mind for each and every scrap of him so thoroughly I'd even ended up dreaming about him by accident. Of course they were uneventful dreams of standing beside him or listening to him talk because once on a roll he could never get enough of his own voice. Unlike real life there had been none of his friends tagging along to demand his attention, no world to save or vague magical bullshit to somehow deal with. It had been just the two of us watching the world turn from the observation deck on my space station. Preposterous.

We'd only ever had a few moments alone over the years and 'alone' was highly subjective in retrospect since he'd been using Yugi as a host body. So why was this so hard? I'd wanted him here - the real thing right in front of me and unable to escape or be pulled away - focused on just me and our battle until it was finally done. It figured that now that there was nothing competing for his undivided attention I had no idea what to do with it. The tension lingered so thick that it had me debating jumping back out of the pod and taking a risk on the swarm instead. Atem cleared his throat as if to speak, and then said nothing.

Distracting.

I breathed in the smell of the cockpit's interior and tried to blot him out of my mind. The upholstery smelt the same as my jet and blimp and limousines and half the vehicles in my garage - like new cars. I tried to sink into that smell, only to have notes of gammy horse sweat clinging to Atem ruin it.

It was also a smell I knew well.

Gozaburo had bred championship thoroughbreds. I associated the smell with him first, and with drowning second. The memory surprised me with its vividness. I recalled with perfect clarity the smooth motion of Gozaburo rolling up his sleeve to the elbow, snaking his hand around the back of my neck to snatch at my hair and then pushing my head under the water of a stable trough. I was twelve. I'd been tired. It had been unexpected.

Gozaburo had denied me sleep for several days, finding some sick delight in trying to make me as off balance as possible before taking me to a business associates livery yard. It was a mutual stroking of egos and feigning of interest, the sort of extra-circular activity that men in his circle knew was part of art of a satisfactory business negotiation. His idiot acquaintance had shown off his thoroughbreds and Gozaburo had smirked as he returned the favor, deliberately clapping me on my bad shoulder like a promising race horse with that grin I despised.

I took one look at the beasts as their conversation washed over me and I hated each and every one of them.

They stood passively in their wooden boxes, barred from leaving not by a gate, electric fence, or hostage situation, but by only a thick corded rope across the entrance of their cages. They were each bigger, stronger and faster than the two men babbling about them across the courtyard. I hated their inability to conceive of the freedom they could so easily escape into. All it would take would be to duck the rope and run and never look back.

Gozaburo's conversation suddenly paused and in the brief lull in their conversation I realized I had been supposed to say something. I had missed my mark and ruined his little pantomime of being 'the perfect heir'.

It didn't matter that we had an audience. Hell, maybe it was because of that reason.

The sleeve rolled up and my head was forced down into the water. He caught me off-guard and held me there even as I thrashed and struggled.

Without air my lungs began to cramp and then burn like they were firing up to explode. I'd known the medical effects of respiratory distress; blackout, hypoxia, brain death. Listing them like they were on a surprise exam was second nature as the darkness enveloped me. My sight turned slowly to a field of black, like a device switching off. He pulled me out a minute later, almost yanking my left arm out of its socket for the second time that week. He had waited for the panic to set in; for me to taste the idea of dying right then and there surrounded by the smell of horse sweat and statues of ridiculous prancing ponies. Almost long enough for me to betray Mokuba's belief in my determination.

He waited for me to get my breath back as I sat panting on the cobble stones at the yard's foundation and then wrenched me up by the arm and back handed me across the face.

I had gotten his suit wet.

"Don't struggle next time, boy." He'd spat.

As if.

Life is the struggle.

I clipped my stroll down memory lane short and felt that old hatred rush through me like an electrical current. I wanted an outlet. Fortunately an ever-reliable one was trapped in here with me.

**Atem**

I pulled my cloak around me in heavy waves and arranged myself carefully.

There was a heat on my face, but Kaiba was thankfully too busy to notice anything. The Gods were merciful to grant me his ignorance. I could scarcely imagine his reaction to... my reaction. Why him leaning so far over me had prompted such a response I couldn't fathom. My blood had eagerly gone astray to a part of my anatomy that, while perfectly natural, was rather unbecoming of a Pharaoh in this situation. With several slow and subtle breaths I set to work on expelling the muted scent of his sweat, deodorant and the less pleasant lingering aroma of Anubis's necrotic sludge and fresh cigarette smoke from my nose. With focus my composure began to return, and not a moment too soon. That could have been disastrous.

My mind drifted as Kaiba busied himself with his Duel Disk. He manipulated the device deftly, with the surety of skill that only its creator could wield. How a single person could harbor both such a creative mind and destructive instincts was a profound mystery known only to the Gods. I closed my eyes to clear my mind. My thoughts dwelt on Kaiba too easily if given the chance and for Yugi's sake I had learned to quiet them before they could become too loud.

Perhaps that was why?

Yugi had never questioned why I had retained control of his body as we circled above Domino in Kaiba's helicopter during the Battle City Tournament. There hadn't been a foe to conquer or a duel to win; just the Kaiba brothers and myself. I had asked him about it once, confused why he hadn't begrudged me for overstepping the bounds of a spirit to overstay my welcome in his body. He had laughed gently in response, full of the unique blend of wisdom and joy that left me missing his council so.

On some level he had understood before even I had that I wanted Kaiba to hear the story of my origin - to know a past I had only just begun to discover.

Yugi rationalized that it took the King of Games to deploy such a perfect strategy without realizing I'd crafted it. Trapped between Mokuba and I in the back of a helicopter Kaiba had been left with no choice but to listen to my words.

Of course he had dismissed all of them as a fantasy and demanded I stop trying to convert Mokuba to believing in my particular brand of madness, but it had been pleasing to be heard. Though hidden behind pride or wishful ignorance Kaiba had always heard me. Me, and not Yugi. He had always been able to tell us apart, even before I was truly aware of the difference myself.

Though largely silent, that helicopter ride had been comfortable. Companionable even. This silence was not.

I opened my mouth and then closed it again as I realized I couldn't think of anything to say.

I wanted to clear the air, but had no idea how to begin. Perhaps Yugi might have known where to start. Perhaps not? I had wondered if he found Kaiba intimidating; he seemed to retreat very far away from the surface of our consciousness whenever Kaiba and I found ourselves locked in battle together. I appreciated the privacy. Dealing with Kaiba had always felt very personal to me. Learning part of him had once served me as my High Priest had accounted for much but was a dangerous way of thinking to fall into. Seto Kaiba was a peer, not a servant, and determined to prove that with every step.

If there was any comfort to be taken it was that Kaiba seemed as awkward in this situation as I. His eyes kept flicking around the pod as though seriously debating escaping back into the desert, scarab swarm or not. It seemed we were equally ill-suited to creating casual conversation. That was reassuring, if not humbling.

He leaned back into the seat and inhaled quietly as his Duel Disk projected some sort of loading screen.

I closed my eyes; trying to discipline my thoughts as Kaiba seemed to be attempting to do. Despite the tense atmosphere the raging swarm created a chaotic harmony; the battering of the scarabs against the cover almost matched the beating of my heart and the steady rise and fall of Kaiba's chest against my shoulder.

I opened my eyes as that cadence stalled.

He was holding his breath and staring blankly at something I couldn't see, his lips down-turned and pinched together into a thin white line. I perked an eyebrow at him, but his concentration was focused solely on something within his own head.

Abruptly his blue eyes sliced over to mine filled with a darkness that would have compelled me to change places with Yugi in an instant should such a look have been leveled at him. I stared back without blinking, sensing the coming of a very different sort of attack.

"Why do you allow yourself to be trapped in this bullshit lie?" He questioned sharply, his tone demeaning and full of accusation. "Nothing here is real. It's just another prison." He pressed, leering at me unpleasantly and swatted a hand at the puzzle around my neck without touching it. "Must feel great to go from a studio apartment to a private kingdom in just one move, but it's just an illusion." My fingers reflexively dug into the leather seat beneath me as his words stirred my temper. "You were supposed to be different." He raged on "I never thought you were weak enough to only consent to live life in a padded cell." His jaw snapping back closed as he finished hissing at me. I could almost taste his eagerness to fight. His eyes gleamed coldly and full of vigor, watching and waiting to see which of his snake bites would be the one to break through my skin.

My anger stirred.

How dare he. The hypocrite! He had been picking fights all day and I had wasted my energy denying them. Now he attacked my afterlife and all those whom dwelt within it? Very well, if he was so very desperate for us to argue then I would grant his wish.

"You dare to call me a prisoner?" I thundered, unable to hold myself back from his vicious challenge as his venomous temper poisoned the blood in my veins. It seemed I would have to correct him yet again. "I fulfilled my destiny and now reap my reward; it is you who are caged by your own petty hatreds!" He sneered at me, eyes narrowing.

"Tch!"

I continued without pause "You speak of only moving forward, yet are so unable to leave the past behind that you've made all this just to seek it out" I waved my hand around the interior of the pod; his own personal temple to the past. "It's time to move on, Kaiba!"

He laughed nastily, the barking noise mirthless and bitter. "Fuck you and fuck Yugi. I'll say when it's 'time to move on'!"

It sounded as though there was some history there, but it was irrelevant as of now. "Is this to become a yearly event then?" I parried, determined to meet his intensity with my own. "Something I can plan my nation's calendar by? Seto Kaiba intruding into my world to ruin it with his foolish ambition!"

"You're the one that left!" He roared back, his rage dwarfing the sound of the scarab swam outside. "You're the one that ran out on -" his tirade cut off in a guttural snarl, apparently not knowing how to finish his own sentence. Did the belligerent idiot really believe our rivalry to be worth more than destiny?

"Ran out on what?" I pressed, shouting back as loudly as possible. "I fulfilled my destiny."

He scoffed contemptibly, objecting to the idea of 'destiny' without words. "We didn't finish our business." Kaiba bit out, suddenly dropping the volume of his voice to all but hiss in my ear. "So here I fucking am." He added, looking away from me to glare at the corner of the pod. "To finish this."

"Our rivalry is not that important." I countered, lowering my voice slightly. It was precious. Exciting. Through our rivalry I had honed my skills and my conviction and I would not have been able to earn my place in the afterlife without those lessons, but like all things it had been destined to end. It was not so important it could escape that fate.

His shoulders stiffened.

"It is to me!" he shouted toward the corner of the pod, no longer meeting my gaze. He grimaced as his words seem to bounce around our mutual cell as a deafening echo that only we could hear. He ducked his head back to his Duel Disk, smacking it with his hand as the loading bar failed to complete at the speed his temper demanded.

It was easy to be swept up in the force of Kaiba's raw fury but much harder when a note of hurt crept in at the corners. Battle was fulfilling to Kaiba, as it was to me, but was it truly that valuable? Was our rivalry such a treasure to him that he would go to this length, while so disposable to me that I had discarded it without a second thought? Fate had beckoned me home and I'd had no doubts in my actions...

He stopped abusing his Duel Disk and glared out across the desert."... How can I measure if I've changed when the metric for my success is gone?" he muttered, loud enough for me to hear and quiet enough for our shouting match to end.

"Are you so unable to trust yourself?" I questioned in a voice both stern and curious.

He let the question fall between us like a lead weight and tethered to that weight was another long silence. It seemed I had infringed upon the territory of a topic that was nearing being too personal to him for continuation.

I was born the son of the Pharaoh, heir to a lineage who's majesty was etched on every wall and surface. A living god. Kindness was important and I had practiced it. Humility, temperance, these were noble ideals for a future Pharaoh to aspire to and taught to me by my father. He had been a wise king and good man. I had embraced them to make him proud, but empathy had at times eluded me. It was difficult to imagine the feelings of someone else. Then after thousands of years within the puzzle, I had been someone else.

Yugi was naturally empathetic. He felt not only his own emotions, but also those of others with a keenness that was impossible not to admire. Deferring to his judgement had been easy, for no victory or amount of power is substitute for a true understanding. I'd learned that the day I'd condemned Kaiba to death atop Pegasus's castle as he beckoned me to slit his throat with my cards. Had Yugi not interceded there would be no Kaiba sat beside me to argue with. I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, trying to channel even a fraction of Yugi's empathy.

It must have been hard for Kaiba; to learn I had passed on. I wonder how Yugi had broken the news?

"How did Yugi tell you that I'd..." I trailed off, not knowing the appropriate verbiage.

"Died off-screen?" Kaiba finished for me. I supposed to him that was accurate so I nodded. Kaiba continued to refused to look at me and crossed his arms to match his legs, a defensive barrier made with every line of his body. "He sent Mokuba a text message."

I sighed. I had no doubt that Yugi had a reason for choosing such a method but that was about the worst way possible it could have played out.

"Apparently it was too hard to reach me, despite the fact the goon-squad managed to call through to me just fine when you all wanted a free flight out of America." Kaiba voice came out amused and scornful, the words clearly spoken as he smirked to himself ruefully. "Turns out for all the preaching, 'friendship' just means being forgotten about until someone needs a taxi ride."

I frowned. "Kaiba, that's not true."

"Yes it is." He stated, his tone not angry or aggressive but matter-of-fact and immovable. That was even worse.

I arched my knee and leaned forward to coil my arms around it. I couldn't see all the cards in his hand, but the one or two he'd revealed made it clear than on some level my passing had wounded Kaiba. My first instinct was to lie, even to myself, and say I hadn't thought he would care so much. Yet deep down I had known he would. I had known he would be angry. I had expected him to be enraged by it all and then eventually once that fury had run its course I had assumed he would move on, just as he'd always shouted to me he would across our duels. He hadn't. I didn't know what to do with the information. What response was appropriate? It was difficult to judge his demeanor when I was stuck staring at the side of his head.

I leaned forward in the seat, trying to get a better look at his face. He hadn't turned back to me since his earlier outburst. Without looking at me his arm lashed out across my body to bar me leaning forward any further, returning my back to the backrest.

"Get lost! There's sand in my eye." He snapped irritably.

Ah.

He was-

Kaiba was-

Ah.

I looked away, wanting to help him shield his pride.

"That's understandable. There's a desert outside." I agreed as neutrally as possible, the words lame even to my ears and judging by Kaiba's scornful snort of amusement I surmised it had sounded equally awkward to him. I hugged my leg to my chest a little tighter. I doubted there was any word of comfort I could give that he would accept.

"Departing from your world was my fate. It was never my intention to -" hurt "-wound you." I settled on, the words staggered and ungainly. He tilted his head my way a little to show he was listening. Now partially turned toward me the remaining moonlight caught the very edge of a long and silent tear track staining the length of his thin face. "I'm sorry for doing so" I added.

He hummed tonelessly. "You couldn't wound me if you tried." He boasted with a bravado that we both knew must be false given the circumstances.

"Trying to get you kicked out of here was a mistake" he grumbled eventually, more to himself than me. A peace offering of sorts, I could only imagine. As unsuited as we both were to conversation, it would seem we were equally so to apologies.

"We will correct that-" I began only to have something so dangerously close to reassurance thrown in my face by Kaiba's brash interruption of "- '_We_'? I'll beat Anubis on my own. I don't need your help."

In spite of the situation I found myself smirking at the surly response. "Then it's fortunate that I don't require your consent to provide it."

He snorted and unwound one of his crossed arms to tiredly rub at his eyes. With a small flash of cyan light and a soft chirp his Duel Disk finished restarting. I was content, if not relieved, to resume sitting in silence as Kaiba's attention was drawn back into repairing it. Another round of 'conversation' ran the risk of setting us at odds again and I didn't wish to spend midnight to dawn battling with every half-felt hurt buried in Kaiba's heart. I didn't know how to win such a fight; or if either of us even could 'win'.

* * *

**AN:** So while I was watching the English dub of DSoD I was really struck by how much older Kaiba's VA sounded in certain scenes, particularly when the character is talking to his computer on the Space Station he sounds a bit hoarse. Realistically speaking I know that's just because it's been a long time since the original series aired and the VA is now a lot older, but it prompted me to consider that Kaiba could have started smoking to mesh that vocal change back into the character.


	12. Chapter 12

**Mokuba**

The street was quiet as our limo pulled up.

Since gaming and gamers were the major sources of tourism it made sense that the provincial laws in Domino were designed to protect minors from outside interference, so I didn't have to worry about the media poking their noses into our business. Most knew better than to take on anything with the Kaiba name attached to it. The privacy was great, but you know, when everyone turns a blind eye to someone it eventual cuts both ways if it turns out they ever need help.

"Closed fer a private exhibition?" A familiar voice read downwind from me as I waited for the security team to give the museum the 'okay'. Just because Seto wasn't around didn't mean I'd flunk out on all his safety procedures even if they were a bit much.

"I guess we'll have to come back tomorrow." A softer voice added, a little surprised. "Oh hey, isn't that Kaiba's-"

"Mokuba, over here!" Joey shouted at the top of his voice with Yugi grinning beside him even though he'd been interrupted. Joey waved at me from across the street as I loitered outside the museum's main entrance, his crazy yellow hair swaying with him. Yugi raised his hand in a more dignified and lower key greeting but beamed a smile at me just as intense.

Hehe. I smiled back. I couldn't help it.

"Hey kiddo, long time no see. nice do-" Joey greeted, the words falling out of his mouth between a shout of "Hey! I'm walkin' 'ere!" As he totally just jaywalked across the street to me and got honked at by a car.

"It's better than yours" I winked at him as he came to stop safely in front of me with Yugi checking the street at least like, three times, before deciding it was okay to cross and jogging to Joey's side. "Heee." Was Joey's only reply with this big cheesy grin. He ruffled my hair. Yugi was out of breath by the time he crossed the distance to us. Jeeze. This guy.

"Hi Mokuba" he chirped, and it was so freakin' easy to want to match that enthusiasm.

"Hi Yugi" I grinned, smirking a little as he loosened up the collar of his shirt under the sun.

"-Man, you're almost as tall'a Yug' now" Joey continued, using his hand to mime drawing a line between us.

"I saw you at the Duel Disk exhibition but didn't get a chance to say hi." Yugi added. Was this what being best friends was? Being able to talk over and interrupt each other without either person getting pissed off? They were really nailing it, but trying to have two conversations at the same time was pretty hectic.

"Yeah no problem, that was a pretty crazy day." I answered Yugi. I couldn't remember the last time we'd all met up. Probably before the text message.

"-Kaiba bettah watch out." Joey added, I guess talking to himself, but any mention of my brother snapped my attention back to the speaker - especially when it was Joey. Seto and him had this weird hate boner thing going on, but just because it was mutual didn't mean anyone got a free pass to bad mouth my big brother. Not on my watch anyway.

"Hnh. Yeah..." I agreed. I guess I should have reigned it in and not frowned, but these guys were our friends, right? So I frowned, pretty hard in fact. Beyond me and Roland and I guess Pegasus no one really knew or cared where Seto was right now. It would be nice to tell someone...

Joey made an uncomfortable "uhhh." noise. I guess I'd hesitated too much and they didn't know if it was ok to ask or not. I got that. I really did. Yugi smiled at me really wide and a bit softly and changed the subject. Or tried to anyway. It wasn't his fault Seto pretty much was 'the subject' every time you traced something all the way back to its starting point.

"So the private exhibition is for you guys, huh?" He questioned, re-reading the sign outside. I nodded, grateful for his distraction.

"It's just me. And Pegasus." I clarified. And Roland. I spotted him keeping an eye on the conversation off to the side pretending like he wasn't listening in on every word. He was a good guy.

"Eeeeey, that creep." Joey cringed, and shuddered in a way that was either childish and genuine or really well acted out for comedic effect. Yugi only raised his eyebrows up a bit in surprise at the information. Unlike these guys Pegasus hadn't exactly been shocked to hear my brother wouldn't be joining us, so at least he probably could already guess where Seto was.

"We're ready for you, Mr. Kaiba" Roland announced, pressing his finger against his earpiece as the all clear came through. "Mr. Pegasus is already inside."

I nodded to him. That was my cue.

"I gotta go guys. Nice seeing you." I grinned at them, the picture of confidence. Or I thought so anyway. Joey and Yugi exchanged this silent look between them.

"Woah wait a minute now! Kaiba really isn't with ya?" Joey asked, jumping in front of me to stop me from making my way inside the building.

"Not today." I told him firmly. I got that he was concerned - he was a big brother too - but this wasn't his business to deal with. This was Kaiba business, and I was getting seriously tired of people forgetting that firstly, 'Kaiba' wasn't actually my brother's name and second, I was a Kaiba too.

"We, uhh, we can't let ya go inta' a room with Pegasus all on yer own." Joey added hesitantly, rubbing the back of his head as I glared at him for getting in my way. He glanced to Yugi for backup. Yugi was frowning, concerned.

"That's right. I don't think your brother would like it. Does Kaiba know about this?" Yugi added. That stung. No. No Yugi, my big brother didn't know about this because he was in another dimension, because you guys couldn't pick up a phone for a ten second 'goodbye' before the Pharaoh skipped town. It pissed me off, but I didn't have time for that so I just sighed, letting it all wash out of me before pinning a grin on my face.

"Guys! I have my own security detail. They're not just for show, you know." I assured them with a wink, holding my hands up to calm them down. They cared, a bit, and that was great, but I was really going to be okay. Pegasus's soul snatching days were done and actually, creepiness aside, when he set up this private viewing of the stone he'd showed my brother I actually believed he wanted to help out. I'd seen a lot of people do some really terrible things for lots of different reasons but this time I really did believe he had good intentions. He'd lose so much money if Seto randomly disappeared; KaibaCorp stocks would drop through the floor and as our biggest partner Industrial Illusions would follow. I'd believe in all his sudden 'helpfulness' for that reason alone.

"Yeah but like, what if some crazy toon duel kicks off and yer need a duelist to set Pegasus straight." Joey was still talking, miming boxing the air with a few jabs as he did so. Yugi chuckled at that a bit indulgently, a drop of sweat running down his forehead as he did so.

"Er, Joey that doesn't sound very likely. Pegasus has changed a lot." He replied for me.

That sounded stupid and unlikely and unbelievable... And for all three of those reasons actually totally possible given this crowd and the people they ran with. Whatever. I guess it never hurt to have back-up. Yugi was right... Sort of. Though Seto had never acknowledge Joey as being remotely worth respecting he actually seemed to think of Yugi pretty highly - for my brother - and he really wouldn't like me going in to see Pegasus on my own. I wasn't even technically asking for help so that was a plus.

"If you want to come that badly then you can" I decided, glancing to Roland to make the necessary security adjustments. He nodded back to me as muttered into his ear piece. "But just keep quiet, okay?"

"We can do that." Yugi agreed softly, while Joey shouted "Yeah!" at the top of his lungs and pumped his fist in the air. Yeah, so much for that.

That seemed to settle it. I shrugged at Roland and made my way inside the museum. It was totally empty. You didn't make a Kaiba wait. Or not in this city anyway. Looks like someone got that memo and the walkway from the museum's entrance through to the exhibition hall was cleared out for my private viewing.

"Why were you guys here anyway? Just passing through?" I suddenly wondered.

"I'm interviewin' fer jobs. Museum's lookin' fer a junior custodian." Joey relied, yawning with boredom and following behind me with his elbows up and his hands clasped behind his head in the picture of a nonchalant teenage punk, as my brother would say.

"Sooo a baby janitor?" I smirked, kinda liking the way he almost fell over and then sputtered before shouting back "Hey! Custodian sounds way cooler!"

"Heh. If you say so." I shrugged and Yugi chuckled as we reached the doorway to the Egyptian wing of the museum.

Roland stood next to me, hand on the doorknob ready to open it up for me while our security team checked out the room one final time. He nodded to me, his sunglasses slipping down his nose a little bit in a way I guess meant they were getting a little loose after all this time.

"The room is secured, sir."

"Thanks, Roland." I sighed. I stepped inside as he pulled the door open for me to a huge room with no windows and the buzzing sound of fluorescent lighting bouncing around the walls.

Joey and Yugi followed, the former making a loud "Ooooh" sound while the later remained politely quiet. I guess Yugi had been here before, but I sorta agreed with Joey's less subtle reaction more.

Over the last few years I'd had quite enough ancient Egyptian-themed stuff happening around me on a bi-annual basis to feel the need to go hunting it down at my local museum but I was kinda impressed by the sheer amount of Egyptian stuff this wing of the Domino Museum actually had. The new tablet was in the center of the room, but added to that every wall was lined with display cabinets and infographics about ancient Egypt and its people. The link to Duel Monsters and Egypt was no big public secret. It was cool to see how an interest in the gaming scene that drew people to this city fed right back into the original stuff that inspired it.

Pegasus was standing next to the stone and blocking some of it from view. He greeted me with an overly nice "Why hello, Mokuba-boy" and arched an eyebrow as my guests trickled in after me. "And I see you brought friends. How quaint."

"Hey yourself" I replied as I trailed over to him. Yugi waved at Pegasus awkwardly from behind me while in the corner of my eye I saw Joey size him up like he expected this to break into a fist fight. I wouldn't have minded getting in a punch or two. I really didn't like Pegasus. It wasn't just because he'd kidnapped me and stolen my soul and my big brother's too; I was living one of those strange lives where people just took that kinda thing for granted and let it be water under the bridge after a while. Nah, it wasn't that. All of that was supposed to be a distant memory after all this Millennium Item business cooled off.

It was that he'd set so many things in motion without ever even knowing about it and a lot of those things had ended badly for my big brother. I knew it wasn't fair to blame him but I still did. He might not have done even a fraction of the damage Gozaburo did, but Pegasus sure hadn't helped Seto out either... And he could have. Since he'd invented my brother's favorite game there was a time right after our adopted father had died when Seto had first approached Pegasus as a sort of potential mentor. I guess Pegasus had taken one look at my big brother and decided to take him for a ride.

"This is it, huh?" I noted. Roland lingered a respectable distance as I took point next to Pegasus.

"Eloquently put." Pegasus confirmed, jolly as ever. Yeah, so he was going to have to try a lot harder to get under my skin than that. Lame first pass at passive aggression.

The section I'd seen hadn't looked all that impressive on the photograph on Seto's computer screen. The picture hadn't really captured the scale of the thing now that it as assembled. I had to crane my neck and lean back a bit to get a full look at all the Duel Monsters and people carved into it but really the only two that mattered were the carvings of my big brother and the Blue-Eyes that hovered behind him. Between the massive scars separating it in half and the museum's reconstruction the full tablet nearly reached the ceiling of the room. Some of the stone had crumbled away a bit where it had been damaged and the top half of it looked weathered but it was the triangular void right in the heart of it that really drew my eye. It looked like a piece of it had been carved out and pried away.

"Why's it so banged up?' I asked out loud.

Pegasus tossed his hair over his shoulder and hummed. "Well now, let's see. The working theory is that the tablet was deliberately broken up into pieces."

"This lower section was unearthed in a tomb in Northern Egypt years ago. And the upper portion was found just recently in a flooded tomb in the south that's still being excavated." Yugi added, glancing to Pegasus for confirmation and receiving it with a brisk nod.

"Very good, Yugi-boy."

Oh yeah. I'd almost forgotten that Yugi's grandfather kept up with all this sort of stuff.

Yugi nodded back enthusiastically.

"So why go buryin' em' in all these places?" Joey asked, wandering around the room to check out all the other displays as he did. He was pretty street-smart. Of all of this that was really the main question and he'd gone straight for it like my big brother would have done, screw the theory and the lore. On this occasion I could guess why. You didn't go deliberately losing things unless you never wanted them found.

"To prevent their reassembly, of course." Pegasus cooed, confirming my suspicion. "The tablet depicts a very dangerous Shadow Game, after all."

Another penalty game? That didn't sound great.

"The upper half of the tablet describes a spell to summon an Egyptian God to spectate over a duel of souls; one intended to return the deceased to life." Pegasus continued. "It seems the victor will win the right to leave the afterlife, while the loser is to be sealed there forever; never to return."

That was new information. To me, at least. I wondered if Seto had known the stakes would be so high when he was prepping the translated version of the photograph into his Duel Disk? Probably. It's not like it would have stopped him anyway - not after he'd come up with that crazy plan to force a draw.

"Wait, fer real?" Joey questioned with a frown. "I mean sure, we've seen some crazy stuff in duels, but bringin' back dead people t'life?"

"Yes, now don't interrupt." Pegasus chided, fixing Joey with an unimpressed cyclops stare. "After dueling Yugi-boy in Egypt our dearly departed Pharaoh-boy was granted safe passage to the afterlife. The tablet suggests the Egyptian Gods may be able to reverse that journey too, if given the right impetus."

"-But that's just all a superstition right?" I hoped so, for my brother's sake. It wasn't that I didn't want to see the Pharaoh again... I just wanted Seto to move on and be happy. "Gods don't really exist." Well the Egyptian God Cards did, but they were trading cards... though Seto had summoned Obelisk out of thin air when Diva jumped us in Egypt. Maybe it was like fairy tale logic and if you believed in them they became real and if you didn't then they didn't? Or maybe it was because Seto was supposed to be the reincarnation of that priest from Atem's time. Thinking about that made my head hurt.

"Spoken like a true Kaiba!" Pegasus chirped.

Yugi patted me on the shoulder. I guess he probably knew better than anyone else how crazy this all was if you were stuck on the outside of it looking in. "Grandpa actually told me about this." He looked up at the ceiling as though he was trying to remember the details. "Arthur Hawkins helped out with the translation of the original fragment found in Northern Egypt and he's been asked to work on the new half too. He sent my Grandpa a transcript of it-"

"- Cool." Joey grinned.

"- and when you put the top and the bottom pieces together it's not good." Yugi carefully cautioned. "The bottom section's a warning" He added, walking over to the tablet's surface and pointing at the figures there. It was a guy I didn't recognize and a lady that looked like Ishizu Ishtar. "Until the new piece was discovered, Egyptologists just never new against what." Yugi frowned. Behind their carvings were the creepy shadows of two half-lion monsters and from below them a large horned wolf, or bear, or something watched them with open jaws.

This was all sort of familiar.

"A warning against casting the spell?" I guessed. Since Pegasus knew doing just that was now on Seto's agenda it seemed a pretty obvious conclusion based on his panicky phone call and the amount of money he must have thrown around to get these two tablets sent to Domino and reassembled so quickly.

"Quite right, Mokuba-boy" Pegasus purred, totally unconcerned.

His hand drew our attention as it grazed over a section toward the bottom of the tablet, just a few inches from the floor. It was a sea of skeletons reaching upwards with long thin fingers. Being chiselled into stone made the detailing on the bones overly simple but I got the gist of it; I'd played enough zombie games to recognize an undead horde when I saw one. "The warning says that if the spell is cast a figure of great evil may win passage back from the afterlife. Should that happen it's return will herald in the end of all things as the living world is swallowed by the dead." He explained.

"Eeee" Joey pulled a face at the skeletons, "Like all those mummified creeps when we got stuck inside'a the Millennium Puzzle."

'Stuck inside of the Puzzle'? Yikes these guys led weird lives, and this was coming from the kid who's brother had a dragon jet. That thing was seriously like, my brother's baby.

"Yeah." Yugi nodded. "That last hole in the tablet's center matches up perfectly with the section found in the Tomb of Anubis and I think that's no coincidence."

Joey squinted at the triangular gap as he tried to recall something. "Hey, didn't Gramps say ta take a closer look at that first prophecy-thing?". He rubbed his chin like he was thinking really hard about it but then gave up and shrugged casually, "Guess it's too late now."

Oh yeah, now that he mentioned it I vaguely remember them talking about that after they beat Anubis. I hadn't really been listening, I'd been too busy patching up Seto's arm. I don't think it helped at all but he'd let me do it anyway so all my focus had been on doing a decent job.

"Oh please. This tablet was destroyed thousands of years ago and the pieces buried in tombs throughout all of Egypt." Pegasus flicked his fingers non-nonchalantly toward the massive tablet. "Taking a 'closer look' without all of the missing sections would have been utterly pointless.

"So this 'spell', that's what you showed my brother?" I demanded, trying to fill in the gaps and not bothering to pretend not to be pissed off about it.

"Yes, well... the pieces were still being translated at the time." Pegasus defended, "I might of been just a little too hasty." He confessed without a single shred of actual regret. "In doing so I'm afraid that I may have accidentally set the events described by the tablet into motion."

"So now it's a self-fulfilling prophecy." I noted, and of course my big brother was caught up in it. "Thanks for that."

"You showed this to Kaiba?" Yugi repeated and turned to Pegasus, his tone coming out a little bit sharp - or as sharp as Yugi's voice ever did. "Why would you do that?"

Yugi asked the question I wanted to so I kept my mouth shut. Weird as it was, it looked like maybe he was angry at Pegasus on Seto's behalf. I'd seen the Pharaoh get bent out of shape for him before, but not Yugi. Yugi was such a nice guy I just wanted to watch and see where this was going.

"Calm down now, Yugi-boy." Pegasus held up his hands in surrender.

"But you must have known what would happen?" Yugi pressed, eyes narrowing a bit to look more like Atem's. He didn't skip a beat before turning to me with that same disapproving look. "Mokuba, where actually _is_ Kaiba right now?" He questioned firmly. His tone of voice sounded half worried and half suspicious so it was pretty clear he'd already guessed the answer.

"Seto was going to challenge the Pharaoh anyway. He'd already been building a pod that used the Quantum Cube's energy to cross dimensions into the afterlife." I admitted quietly, staring at my feet. "Even without this spell he would have gone no matter what. I couldn't talk him out of it." I felt like such a failure for that - for never being able to talk my big brother out of anything, no matter how bad the idea was.

Joey ruffled my hair. "Ain't your fault, kid." He scratched at the tip of his nose with his finger, glancing over the tablet at the same time. "So just'ta recap, yer all sayin' Kaiba is'n the afterlife right now?"

"Yeah..." I muttered.

It was nice to have other people know, but explaining all of it hadn't exactly been painless.

"So he's dead?" Joey concluded bluntly.

That loser dog!

"The hell!" he yelped as I stamped on his foot as hard as I freaking could while Yugi shouted "Joey!" in a high-pitched squeak. Joey hopped up and down, cradling the foot I'd stomped with a "Ow ow ow".

"Shut up!" I yelled at him, my voice cracking high at the worst possible time. "My brother isn't dead! He's coming back!"

"Ow. Y-yeah. O'course he is!" Joey corrected, slowly lowering his foot back to the floor with a wince of pain that he totally deserved. "Sorry, Mokuba." he added sheepishly, scratching at the back of his head.

Pegasus eyed us warily. Good. He better watch out for what he'd done. Seto's plan aside, he'd basically given candy to a hungry kid and then was pretending not to have anticipated the sugar rush.

Now it was Yugi's turn to look guilty and sad. He kicked his foot against the floor like he was bashful about it. "I knew Kaiba missed Atem, but I never though he'd do something like this-"

"-You've met my brother, right?" I snapped at him. It wasn't fair but this whole thing wasn't fair. "Tall guy, brown hair, long coats."

"Mokuba..." Yugi replied softly, just letting me shout at him which made me even madder.

"This was exactly the sort of thing Seto would do! Aren't you the one who keeps talking about being our friend!" I demanded. Yugi broke my glare to stare at the floor. It felt so good to have someone to blame right now.

"We are." He murmured to the floor tiles. Some 'friends'.

"Hey now-!" Joey yipped, of course coming to Yugi's defense.

I should never have let them come in here with me. This was a family matter; forgetting that had been dumb.

"-Boys." Pegasus interrupted, actually sounding like a freaking adult for the first time ever as he pulled our attention back to him. I would have liked to fight more, but whatever. "Bickering like ingrates does nothing." Pegasus sighed dramatically. "Look here." He pulled a laser pointer from the breast pocket of his suit and shone it right up at the very top of the tablet. I hadn't really noticed the carving before, you know, since it was eight foot in the air. Yugi peeled away his eyeballs from the floor to glance over the two figures Pegasus's little red dot was circling.

"It's Atem." He noted, "and Kaiba."

"Yeah, but like, Kaiba-Kaiba." Joey elaborated, if that counted as elaboration. I rolled my eyes. "Not Egyptian-Kaiba." He concluded, sounding like a stupid idiot just like my brother always said he was.

"Dueling." I deadpanned, totally unimpressed. I threw in a sarcastic huff of "Like those two always do. What else is new?"

"Dueling, yes." Pegasus explained overly slowly like he thought I was an idiot. "But it's not as it initially appears." His laser hovered over a section of hieroglyphics way lower down next to my knee, running back and forth beneath them to underline them. "These inscriptions tell us that they're not dueling against each other-"

"-Their dueling together, against Isis and Mahad." Yugi interrupted thoughtfully as he examined the lower portion of the tablet again.

"Great." I dead-panned, "And this is helpful why?"

"It's helpful because it shows us they're on the same side." Yugi answered, a bit of hope sneaking into his tone. "And if that's the case then nothing is going to beat them!"

"Yeah." Joey agreed, warming up his words to match Yugi's. "If those two are werkin' t'gether you got nothin' ter worry about!"

I guess. But that was a pretty big 'if'.

**Kaiba**

I missed my fucking jet.

I'd sell my half of KaibaCorp off right now to the guy who could bring it into this world so I could fly the hell away from this conversation with Atem.

So our rivalry didn't matter to him. It was worthless. Or at the very least worth less than his superstitious nonsensical belief in fate and destiny. So yeah: worthless.

If fate was a thing I'd have grown up as just another punk spat out by the foster care system roaming around getting into street fights. Either that or have died at eight years old in a car crash with the paternal non-entity who had stolen my biological father's face after my mother died. Fate was bullshit. I made my own destiny. Atem was a hell of a lot weaker than I'd ever thought if he couldn't do the same.

A stab of something sliced through me and it took me a minute to realize what it was. Disappointment.

Turns out being let down by him was somehow worse than being beaten by him.

I hadn't felt such a bitter disappointment in anything since Gozaburo decided he'd rather use a window as a door than admit defeat, but at least Gozaburo had gotten exactly what he wanted and seized it for himself. Somehow to Atem fate was more appealing than what we had going on.

_"Our rivalry is not that important."_

Hearing that felt like he'd punched me in the solar plexus but in retrospect I'd already suspected it. He'd demonstrated it first hand the second he'd left for this dreamland, so of course on some level I must have already known. Logically I wouldn't be here if there was any evidence to the contrary. Hearing it from his mouth was different to drawing the conclusion in my head. His bare-faced declaration had no damn right to be a shock or 'wound' because I'd already known it from the outset, hadn't I. Sorting it out in my mind was a relief.

In fact, I should be thanking him.

It took balls to look someone in the eye and tell them you don't give a damn after insisting they were your 'rival' or 'friend' after so long.

Now I knew exactly where I stood and there was no ambiguity left for me to waste my time on trying to clear up.

The need to get out of here struck me like a truck. I wanted to be as far away from him as physically possible. The sooner I was back in the real world the better. Moronic as it was, this finally felt like a conclusion. It wasn't the one I was aiming toward, but I hadn't really known what I was hoping for - only that I'd know it when I saw it. This was 'it'. We were done here. It was time to go home and put this all in the rear view mirror. Life was full of disappointments; one more wasn't a surprise.

It really was 'time to move on'.

My Duel Disk chimed as it finished restarting. Mokuba had picked the Operating System's start-up jingle. I didn't like it, but I'd never change it.

The patch worked - or the components seemed stable at least. Between inaccurate read outs and a busted visual processor scrambling the UI it hadn't been clear exactly what the device thought was going on. Now it was. If it weren't so ridiculous I'd have suspected the damn thing of listening in on Atem's insistence on tag teaming this.

According to my Duel Disk, this wasn't a game between three players, but between two. Looking at the cards played for each side it had lumped Atem and I together along with our decks. Great. My suspicion was correct. Since my Blue-Eyes and Kaiser Sea Horse had de-spawned but not been destroyed they had never been removed from our shared side of the field. The pair of them lingered in defense position uselessly, taking up two of the possible seven cards that could be played at any one time by the temporary rules of the free-form Duel Mode. I'd crippled our maximum efficiency without even knowing.

From Anubis's side of the field a pair of face down cards lurked in waiting, along with Sphinx Teleia, Botanical Lion and Scarab Swarm. The ten minute maximum summoning time had been tossed to the wind by these non-holographic holograms and having buzzed around for the better part of twelve minutes it looked like the scarabs were as bored of all this as I was.

Figures that nothing here would play by my rules.

Whatever the case -if the cards were a hologram or real creatures or some wacky hybrid - it didn't matter, the long and short of it was the scarab swarm wasn't going anyway any time soon and I didn't have all damn night.

The light from the moon had been serviceable before, but it seemed like that was over for now. I nested the components back in their mounting by feel alone; the circuitry of the Duel Disk no longer visible through the gloom.

The chassis of the device screwed back into place easily and it was just as well I'd worked so quickly. The light now wasn't good enough for anything else. Combining the sky clouding over to hide the moon along with the growing layer of scarabs that were taking it upon themselves to either mash into the pod or crawl along its hull and darken the windows meant the ambient light had no chance. Occasionally a few of them skittered far enough apart to let just enough moonlight in to see by and catch on Atem's jewelry, but no sooner had each gap opened than another five scarabs crawled over the canopy window to close it up again.

Repairing the Duel Disk seemed to be the only thing keeping us from having another round of 'conversation', so the fact that I couldn't continue with the repairs any more was a slap in the face. Thankfully it seemed we'd reached out conversational quota and Atem had gone very still since that last little heart to heart. I stole a glance at him. His eyes were closed.

His dark eyelashes cast soft shadows against his high cheekbones. They suited him, but were a surprise. Yugi's face was much rounder by comparison and his features weren't as refined as Atem's. His eyelashes were almost overly long, nearly feminine, but nothing else about him was. That would be a difficult dichotomy of traits to reproduce with my holograms once I got back.

That made me pause. Why bother with the AI version of him now? So it could tell me each and every match I simulated that our battle was worthless to it? Not likely. Atem had made me unimportant to him, it was time to start returning the favor. That made me smirk ruefully. "Tch." Simulating him, trying to resurrect him, coming here; this whole thing had been so fucking stupid.

Red eyes opened questioningly, and then squinted in the gloom. "Why is it so dark?"

I shrugged, my left shoulder hitching as I did. I really didn't care and I didn't want to talk to him right now. I just wanted him to shut up and not exist.

With a flex of his biceps he pulled his Duel Disk toward him and the golden glow of the custom UI lit up the cockpit like a candle, almost blindingly bright to have been activated so abruptly in the thickening darkness. He shielded his eyes and I squinted at the display.

A new card had been played, a minute ago by the look of it. Shit. The notification must have been drowned out by our shouting match.

I popped several of the fasteners free and slapped the pod's tarpaulin cover back to get a look. The sheet was heavy thanks to all the scarabs crawling across it but as soon as I disturbed it they buzzed and flew off, the whole swarm flying into the sky that we were rapidly slipping away from.

What?

A wall of sand had grown in around us, rapidly filling up the space around the pod like a quagmire. No, I realized as the moon continued to shrink away. It wasn't the sand dunes that were growing, it was the pod that was sinking right before my eyes. We were being pulled down into a fucking crater.

I leaned back inside. "We need to go, now!" The card art for Bottomless Shifting Sand – the trap card – was reflected in Atem's Duel Disk display. Just great. I fully ripped off the tarp canopy and jumped out to stand on the pod's hull, pulling out my toolkit with me. Atem copied, emerging from the cockpit to stand beside me on the metal frame as the sand began to creep up the windshield. The embankment of sand that was closing in on us quickly grew, the pod and us standing on it looking more and more like the camel on the card with every second as the desert sinkhole prepared to swallow us whole.

The pod jerked underneath us as the desert dragged it down further into the magical pit.

Atem was knocked off balance and had to steady himself as I snatched his wrist and yanked him back towards me to keep him from being devoured by the whirlpool of sand.

Shit. "Ghn!" Shit. Shit.

Abruptly jerking my left shoulder to grab him made a crackle of pain pulse down from it as I brought my arm and Atem back to my side. I shoved my fingers against the joint to try and get it properly back in place. The snap of agony lessened. Snagging it against the balcony earlier must have loosened the pin. Atem seemed concerned, his eyebrows shooting up his forehead but I scowled at him and cut him off before he could open his big mouth. "Heads up."

He quickly put his game face on, the presence of battle visibly filling up his body and mind with that superlative focus that no one else came close to matching. "Yes, I see her."

I nodded with gritted teeth and easily rode the turbulence without a second thought as the pod bucked beneath us, not taking my eyes off the moron who thought now was a good time to show up and fucking test me.

From the top of the embankment the unmistakable silhouette of Ishizu stood overshadowed against the moon. She licked her lips, the moonlight catching the movement and branding our attacker in silver light. How the hell had she found us so quickly?

"A fitting demise, wouldn't you say, Pharaoh?" She called down to us as Botanical Lion roared at her side, "To be buried alive?" Her eyes gleamed like polished metal, staring bullets at us as her scarabs buzzed at her back, swirling around her as a defensive vortex of wings and twitching limbs.

"To have insects eat the flesh off your bones." she purred, catching a scarab in the palm of her hand and crushing it in her fist with a loud crunch. It exploded into black ooze and dribbled out between her fingers. She shook the mess free with a waggle of her wrist before pointing toward us. "Feast my pets!" she called and the swarm responded.

The Swarm of Scarabs closed in around her, undulating in a whirlwind and then rushed forward down the pit towards us like a torrent of water.

Finally. Some fucking action. Something I could smack down and pulverize beneath my boot! I laughed at Ishizu or Isis or Teleia or whoever the fuck it was Atem thought we were up against. She had no damn idea what she was signing up for.

The scarabs swarmed around us, humming like helicopter blades as they flew past my ears and messing up my hair but other than that managing to do a whole lot of nothing. A few landed on my coat and I dislodged them with a single swipe; one tried to bite me with its pincers but it couldn't get through the leather. I huffed in sour amusement at the ridiculous anti-climax. Such weaklings.

"Is this really the best you can do?" I smirked at her as her useless scarabs crawled over us. I didn't like the ticklish feeling but I didn't move. She had a pretty good poker-face but her monster wasn't even worth my time to react to. "Pathetic!" I told her, snatching up one of her scarabs and throwing it back into the wind. It caught itself and buzzed lazily, hovering in mid air. I was tempted to summon up Blue-Eyes and test out its stability now I'd done some repairs to my Duel Disk, but it would be an insult to my dragon to waste its valuable time on these small fry.

Atem hummed thoughtfully, brushing a few that had landed on his cape off of it with a flex of his fingers. "Be careful." He warned me, sounding so superior.

"Shut up." I didn't need him or his stupid warnings. We were done.

He didn't reply.

Teleia simply continued to grin, narrowing her eyes a little. "Well then I'll simply have to do better." She purred.

"Yeah, you do that." Please do. "Give it your best shot, you perverted bitch". I wanted a real fight!

She tapped on her lip, the moon catching the maliciousness in her eyes despite the playful gesture. In a pulse of tar a pair of new cards dripped into being between her fingers and she slipped the gross wet things onto her shoddy fake Duel Disk. With that she was all out of card slots. I hoped for her sake she was happy with her choices because it was live by the cards, die by the cards. I smirked, making sure the expression was as dark as I could make it while waiting to see what her last gasp was going to be before I pulverized her.

The first was face down and hovered in the air dripping onto the sand, the second had a more immediate presence. The ground in front of her erupted in ooze, a long stalk bursting out of the mush and growing taller and taller, a massive bud unfurling and uncurling to reveal -

"-Naturia Pineapple." Atem noted. The ridiculous looking googly eyed pineapple swayed merrily from the top of its stalk.

"Tch." First Yugi, now this. Why was everyone trying to battle me with fruit recently?

"Oh no!" Atem barked beside me. He could spare me the dramatics.

"What, too many antioxidants?" I smirked at him as he turned back to glare at me, serious as ever.

"No, Kaiba. Look!" He urgently jabbed a finger toward Teleia and I got what he was pointing at as the beast behind her roared and swelled up in size to blot out the moon.

"Botanical Lion's strength increases for all Plant types present and Naturia Pineapple -" Shit. "-Turns everything she's got on the field into Plants." I finished for him, the effect working on both Swarm of Scarabs and Sphinx Teleia herself from the read-out of my Duel Disk. Botanical Lion's hulking body prowled and snarled, now several times taller than Teleia herself and covered in bark that looked like sinewy muscle.

She patted the monster idly. "Finish them." She sneered.

Almost too quick to track Botanical Lion leapt into the pit, bounding across the writhing sand toward us with an entourage of bright green Plant typed scarabs racing behind it like a vapour trail. Between the trapped sand and the monsters we had nowhere to go but to fight through and I damn well liked it that way!

"I'll take care of it." Atem announced, drawing a card in a flash of gold.

"Like hell you will!" I snapped back, generating my own in bright blue. Finally there was something worthy of calling back my Blue-Eyes for! I didn't need him to 'take care' of anything and unlike him I actually knew how this free-form dueling mode was supposed to work!

"I play Dust Tornado! -"

"- I activate Interdimensional Matter Transporter!"

We yelled simultaneously, slapping our cards down in unison. The Duel Disk's 'played cards' log flashed up, trying to parse out the conflicting inputs.

"How kind of you to destroy yourselves." Teleia cackled. With a flourish of her hand she revealed her final card, Mystical Refpanel.

A blue orb cradled in the hands of a pink and purple pixie hovered in front of her, pulling both of our spells into it like a black hole. Atem's twister howled as it was drawn into the ball in a flurry of wind and sand while my Matter Transporter wildly shot out portals in every direction as it got sucked into the singularity.

"This will be bad." Atem commented, non-nonchalantly.

"You fucking think!"

The orb churned in the fairy's hold. Then it exploded.

Our spells tore apart the desert as they blasted back at us and I couldn't even tell what happened. It was too fast. I saw Atem brace for the impact beside me. Then I was thrown back into the air. We were shot into the sky; whirled around and turned upside down in the tornado so quickly I couldn't judge the direction; I could only feel the wind and the sand scouring my face as gravity flipped and tried to tear me apart.

Someone was shouting, but it was impossible to hear. I might have been shouting too - I couldn't tell.

The sky and the sand somersaulted overhead, swapping places over and over again and I was sure I'd be throwing up already if I had anything left after earlier. A portal made by my Matter Transporter yawned open in front of me, caught in the twister like a sparrow in a hurricane and I crashed through it.

Abruptly I plunged into freezing water and everything turned cold and black.


	13. Chapter 13

**Atem**

This sound... What was this sound. It was so familiar...

That long rattling hiss, almost a screech.

Japanese cicadas...

I sputtered awake as my nose and mouth filled with silty water. It tasted of earth and left grit upon my tongue.

Where was I?

A lakeside clearing met my view as I managed to raise my head from the muddy riverbank, feeling the muck slide down the side of my face as I did so. Sunlight dappled across the surface of the water. It was day now and a mercilessly hot one. I must have been unconscious for quite some time to have missed the dawn. My robe and hair were being gently tousled by the current as my body lay caught against the shoreline of a river that quietly babbled into a lake. The clean and clear water shone bright blue - so deep and cold there was an uncanny resemblance to Kaiba's eyes.

Wait.

Where was Kaiba?

Slowly I propped myself up on my elbows to spit out the loose soil, a stabbing pain in my side stilling me from moving any further. It spirited my fingers to dig into the mix of soil, sand and water in search of an outlet for the frisson of agony. I pressed my hand to my side to apply pressure as I shakily found my feet. The river rushed in around my sandals and swallowing up three thick drops of red that escaped between my fingers and dripped from my side back into the river's current.

It would seem the wound was not healing as well as I had thought.

The cape at my shoulders was heavy with water, dragging me down slightly instead of flying behind me as was the norm. I ran my hand down its length to the bottom of the sodden garment, regretting having to ruin it despite the necessity of the action. I ripped a piece of it free from the rest and tied it around my waist as tightly as I could to staunch the bleeding of the reopened slash with the newly made sash. Or so I had intended. A moment later blood bloomed once more across the fabric, staining it. Unless properly sealed it was going to leave behind an unpleasant scar.

Oblivious to my plight songbirds cheerily chirped and fluttered from branch to branch in the trees making up the outskirts of a thick forest that embraced the lake's edge. Much like the cicadas their calls were familiar to me, though I had only ever heard them through Yugi's ears.

The wind rustled through the leaves, the sunlight filtering through them in shades of bright green. I also recognized these types of trees the more and more I contemplated them. They grew in Domino park and in the woodland that flanked the Kaiba mansion. Their presence here in the afterlife was as unnatural as Kaiba's own; as was this whole setting. Much like the KaibaCorp building this must be another place reflected in our now shared world.

It mattered very little. For now they would make for good support.

I took another cleansing breath and set a pace for myself by placing one foot in front of the other and then mirroring the action, breathing through the discomfort in my side. Slowly and methodically I marched toward the treeline of the dense forest, carefully picking my feet up and over the network of roots that undulated across the forest floor until I was close enough to touch one.

I leaned against the tree for a moment just to catch my breath, pressing my forehead to it while the cicadas hissed louder in the background.

The bark was so cool to the touch. I slid down the solidness of the trunk to sit at its roots and drew my strength back into my body in long slow inhalations, thankful for the shade. The wood was thick and overshadowed - the branches of the trees meshing together above my head, overlapping their leaves until only slender rays of sunlight penetrated the canopy to dapple across the forest floor. It would be very easy to slip back into the embrace of unconsciousness. This clearing was the picture of peacefulness; no doubt waiting to be shouted apart by Kaiba's living-chaos the moment I found him again.

Damn that oaf and his stubbornness.

It was as familiar as it was frustrating that my winning combination against Teleia's Botanical Lion had been thwarted not by our foe, but by Kaiba's inability to listen! I told him I would deal with the matter and he had thrown it back in my face to miraculous catastrophe before I could place even two cards.

I waited another minute braced against the tree, wiping the sweat from my forehead and meditating to bring my breathing back under my full control before pushing myself onward. I had to find Kaiba. I suspected he wouldn't be too far away.

My heart had near beat out of my chest as we fell through the air on the torrents of my rebel Dust Tornado, but fate had been our ally. The portal that swallowed Kaiba before my eyes caught me in its maw next. I had watched water hurtle toward me -or I toward it- and recalled the splash of hitting it. I couldn't recall much after that.

I wandered the lake's outer edge, hoping like me he had been fortunate enough to wash up here. It took little time to find him; recognizable as he was.

He too was slicked with mud, yet his white coat shone luminous against the lakefront. It was faintly disturbing to see his wardrobe as anything less than immaculate; even Anubis's necromantic filth had been unable to soil the snow-white hide Kaiba garbed himself in as easily as a second skin. The determination to be perfect rippled through everything he did, no matter how misguided his interpretation of 'perfection' proved to be. I respected it.

I kept my pace steady as I marched from grass to sand and knelt beside him, the muscles in my legs and slash in my side protesting at the treatment. He lay still upon his back. A small trench of boot prints leading from the lake's shallows to the shore described him wading ashore without words, only to collapse as he hit the sandy beach that claimed this part of the shoreline as its own.

Warm air tickled my palm as the steady thump of Kaiba's heart pulsed from his chest as I hovered my hand across his nose and mouth and brushed my earring back to listen for a heartbeat in his chest. I had suspected it would take more than a few wayward card effects to end him and was proven correct.

"Unless you're dead wake up." I bid him. I tapped him on the shoulder twice. There was a reaction; a soft moan and a slight rolling of his shoulder that ended my prodding. My words seem to have little effect beyond that. Reluctantly relaxed by unconsciousness, the resemblance between him and my High Priest became more notable than I had previously acknowledged.

Perhaps a change of strategy was in order.

"Seto." I tried this time, sharper than my previous attempts and bearing fruit as his body frantically jerked awake, smacking me with his arms as I hovered over his head and kicking at me like a startled horse. I secured his wrists in my grip to stop him from striking at me again or hitting himself and understood that had been the wrong move to make as he thrashed even more violently in my hold, eyes opening wide and unfocused as I held him down.

"Kaiba!" I shouted, ducking a fist as it writhed free from my grasp to try and hit me. "Kaiba, stop!"

His chest heaved and breath came free of his lips in ragged pants before his eyes finally focused on my face. Then his expression grew more awake and even more furious and he began to fight against me all over again, and stronger this time.

"Get the hell off of me!" He yelled, forcefully trying to yank himself free of me. I dropped his wrists and backed away, holding up my hands in surrender as I did so. It was a gesture I'd never used before but seemed effective as Kaiba scrambled to sit up and reclaim his space.

I'd seen Kaiba unconscious several times, but never before had I tried to wake him myself. I now understood attempting to do so to have been a mistake.

He snarled at me, rubbed his eyes and ran his hand over his hair to pull back his bangs a little before viciously forcing himself back onto his feet, wobbling a little as his boots sank into the gritty beach sand.

"Where are we?" He demanded, somehow fully awake and blazing with energy.

How did he expect me to know? This forest was of his creation. "I know as little as you do." I countered, glaring as he turned to sneer at me.

"Don't you live here?" He snapped. How he could muster such aggression in this heat I had no idea. Even my High Priest was more inclined to be easygoing in these conditions.

Kaiba swiped at his coat, trying to work the wet sand free and leered at me, waiting for my retort as though we were to take turns in insulting each other. He became irritated as I refused, instead staring at him in reprimand. I had little energy for this and Kaiba's body had sustained so much additional damage. How could he still have enough vigor spare to throw at meaningless bickering?

He grimaced and turned away from me.

Without so much as a glance Kaiba stalked off towards the forest, disappearing into the treeline without a care. The trees consumed him eagerly. Did he mean to discard me so easily? I jogged after him, each step agitating the cut beneath my sash as I trailed him.

"Where do you think you're going?" I questioned, harshly. Fallen twigs and dried leaves crunched beneath my feet as I pursued him. No one walked away from me. Walking away was an insult of the deepest kind to a Pharaoh. To show a back without dismissal was executable, though no one born to my line had been so petty for several generations. Kaiba cared little of my people's customs, of course, but it struck at my temper all the same.

"Stop." I commanded. Kaiba paused as his long legs finished effortlessly guiding him over a fallen log. He glanced back at me and then snapped his head forward as though he hadn't heard me speak.

"Would you wait?" I growled, in no mood for his foul attitude right now. His anger was obvious, though I had no idea its source or target. With each overly long-legged step he took fury at something either real or in his own head was propelling him further and further away from me in silent protest. I refused to chase him down and trudging through this unknown wood without a goal or destination was a fool's errand.

"We need to stop and think!" I shouted at the back of his skull. "Use your head instead of letting your rage drag you around by your nose. There's no sense charging off down a path until we know what direction to travel in!"

He pressed on further, quicker, ignoring me as though I was non-existent; as if I was nothing but a ghost again. Despite the childishness of it a sting of hurt raced through me. Of everyone in the modern world Kaiba had always known me; known me to be an opponent different from Yugi. How dare he ignore me, as though I was something beneath his acknowledgement.

"Enough!" I scolded, all but demanding his attention by vaulting over the log and planting my feet firmly in front of him with arms thrown wide open to become as impassable as possible. "Release your rage and think clearly for once in your life."

He was forced to stop or run into me and crossed his arms tightly over his chest.

"You need new material. Your lectures are getting boring and formulaic" he noted, tone bored and cold but finally speaking at the very least. Why was he acting this way? His eyes avoided me with determination, locked on some empty point above my head.

"I'll devise a new one once I'm certain the previous has penetrated your thick skull!" I easily countered, a little relieved that despite his words and demeanor he was at the very least looking at me again as he fixed me with a dull stare for my rebuttal.

"Teleia found us in the desert easily. She must be able to track us." I pressed. Wandering lost through the forest was useless if it worked only to disorient us but not our foe. Kaiba glanced away again to deny me his gaze.

"Probably the Duel Disks." Kaiba grumbled to himself, barely loud enough for me to hear as though speaking to me was a great inconvenience. "They have that feature so you can find nearby challengers." He reluctantly muttered.

"The compass." I realized aloud, irritated but unsurprised when Kaiba slipped back into attempting to ignore me once more.

He sidled around me to continue navigating through the trees.

"Before it was directing me to you. Now that we're together what is it finding?" I added, already able to guess the answer and simply wishing to engage Kaiba further in conversation. I couldn't say why he was attempting to - as Joey would call it - 'blank me' but I recognized the tactic with each passing lack of response and denial of eye contact.

"Tch." Kaiba's wayward expression darkened, even as he refused to look at me as I kept pace beside him. "Since it doesn't track Duel Monsters like Sphinx Teleia the only other person it could be finding would be our opponent."

"So then it is tracking Anubis himself" I surmised. "Then we have a way to hunt him down."

"Hnh." Kaiba responded, falling silent again and keeping his eyes locked on a parting in the treeline.

We stepped through the veil of trees, only to gaze upon the very lake we had just strode away from. We had gone in a circle.

Kaiba growled beside me, turning to march back into the trees again to no doubt the same result. I caught his wrist in mine, keeping my hold loose to avoid his earlier reaction.

"Be still. There's nothing but forest in every direction. We must be very far from where we just were. We should rest and regain our strength while we can."

I had expected a shout of "You rest!" or a "Mind your own business!" instead I received another stony silence. Why was he acting this way? Like a sulking child, or an angry cat, or a spurned lover.

"Stop ignoring me like a spoiled child!" I shouted, my building rage finally breaking like a tsunami against a cliff face.

"What!" Kaiba snatched his arm out of my hold, turning to me with so much venom in his eyes I retreated as he took a step forward, repeating the action again and again as he pressed his advantage to trap me; marching us both into the middle of the thick trunk of a hollowed out tree. It had died standing and with tall walls of bark looming over me on every side and Kaiba himself blocking the only exit escape was impossible. Now our duel of words would truly begin.

"What the hell did you just say to me?" he demanded.

"Stop ignoring me!" I clarified with a growl of my own, returning his intensity in kind.

"Why?" He bellowed, slamming his fist into the bark above my head with enough force to splinter the wood and further boxing me in between his body and the tree itself. His expression darkened as the shadows of the canopy above overtook his face. He leaned towards me, over me, like a predator cornering his prey. Unfortunately for him I was no frightened rabbit waiting to be devoured by his wolf teeth.

"So you can call me worthless!" He barked, a little spittle hitting my face.

What! What idiocy was this? I had never called him something so utterly ridiculous! Exactly what vile words had his willful ability to ignore the truth planted into my mouth without my consent?

"I have never called you worthless!" I shouted back. I would meet his volume with my own if that was what it took.

He glowered at me savagely, eyes bright with a rage he clearly didn't care to tame.

"'Our rivalry is worthless' - that ringing any bells?" He hissed, smacking his palm even harder against the bark above my head with a deafening slapping sound.

"I didn't say that." I defended. "Are you so arrogant that just because you are not greater than the will of the gods you condemn me as deeming you worthless?" It seemed Kaiba had a hidden propensity for internalizing conversations and twisting them to his own warped narrative. I had noticed it partially in snippets of conversations over the years but only now did I suspect the true extent of the habit. I would have to be more mindful.

"I'm not worthless!" He thundered, utterly missing my point. Where was all of this coming from? What deep hole in Kaiba's brain had my words fallen into to be so adulterated as they echoed around his mind? I wished so desperately for Yugi's insight into the situation, clearly I was doing more harm than good to Kaiba when left to my own judgement.

"No, you're not!" I roared back in agreement. "I have already apologized once! Must I prostrate myself at your feet you before you'll accept my regrets!" Hadn't we had this argument already? Was this not settled? "Stop putting words in my mouth. You are my equal!" I reminded him, straining my voice to yell as loudly as I could. "Do not ever forget that." I finished with, Kaiba's angry eyes darting away from mine, no longer able to hold eye contact. "Fate may be something you are happy to overthrow, Kaiba, but it is as precious to me as self-determination is to you!" I explained, lowering my voice "Can you not accept that and my respect at the same time?"

Kaiba said nothing and ducked his head away, I hoped in understanding.

Trapped against him and the walls of tree bark a strange feeling was beginning to crawl up my spine. Despite his best attempts at being threatening Kaiba didn't intimidate me. I had seen him at his very worst and stood strong against the storm of his full maliciousness before - so why was my breath catching in my chest? Why was something that felt so close to fear biting at my nerves without good reason?

"Back off now." I commanded. I needed space; I couldn't breathe as easily as I usually could. The sensation of the bark closing in around me licked at my mind.

Kaiba's eyes narrowed. They darted across my face abruptly becoming very intent upon my expression. I was unsure what they saw, but with a rebellious 'tch!" a gritting of his teeth and a clenching of the fist half-embedded in the tree wall above my head he acquiesced. With a sweeping step back he opened up my escape route to the open world and with a serenity I didn't feel I casually dipped below his arm to claim it - more desperate to do so than even I had realized. I calmed as I took a step back toward the lake, deeply unsure of the reason for my earlier panic.

"Fine." He bit out. I had no idea what he was agreeing upon.

"Fine." I echoed regardless.

A breeze blew between is as we stared at anything except one another. It cooled a little of my sweat but little else while Kaiba softly tensed against it.

"You can rest, I'm fine." Kaiba spoke to the wind. It took a moment for my mind to clear, to realize he was continuing a conversation that had long since been discarded in an effort to change topics.

"Very well. I shall. At least one of us should be rested enough to face the challenges ahead." I cautiously taunted, unable to judge Kaiba in this moment. His chaotic moods were telling. He needed rest more than I did, but I had no way of knowing what angle to take to successfully goad him into agreement - if that was even within my power.

"But don't lay your bitterness at my door if I'm forced to step in and protect you once the energy from your bad-temper finally runs its course." I chanced, looking at him with small smirk.

A soft "Hnh." passed his lips. "As if I'd let that happen." he muttered.

There was nothing less likely to help Kaiba rest than commanding him to do so, especially if he still harbored some anger toward me. Predictable rebelliousness aside, I was glad when after a moment of pacing back and forth he came upon some defining internal decision and took a seat at the roots of a tree all of his own accord.

"How does this game mode work?" I wondered aloud, picking a topic as neutral as possible. For a moment it seemed he wouldn't answer and it would have been utterly in keeping with the mood if Kaiba petulantly turned my attempt to make conversation into another silence, just to prove he could.

"Just like a duelist gets seven cards in their hand, you get to play seven cards at a time. Once you use a card, you loose the card." Kaiba answered after a pause. His voice was a little distant. I glanced back to him.

Even reclining against the tree's sturdy trunk wasn't enough to seal Kaiba's consent to sleep it would seem. Though he leaned back against it with a full intention of resting, there remained a stiffness in his shoulders that denied relaxation.

I called up my Duel Disk's display curiously. "And two of our seven slots are already held hostage by your Blue-Eyes and Kaiser Sea Horse" I noted.

"Tch. They de-spawned when my Duel Disk's power fluctuated, but since they were never destroyed they were never technically removed from the field. So yeah, 'held hostage' is a good description." He reluctantly conceded.

"Can you remove them from play?" Softening my tone was a mistake.

So was the wording it would seem. Kaiba's head whipped around back toward me and his eyes flashed back open. "Don't tell me what to do with my monsters!" He growled, once more looking more awake with his temper fueling him.

I nodded, unsure what else to say. I suspected it was not Kaiser Sea Horse's removal he was objecting to. I should have known better than to suggest on any level that Kaiba willingly relinquish one of his Blue-Eyes to the graveyard. "I understand." I settled upon, replying not to his hastily barked words but to the motivation guiding them. He watched from the corner of his eye and tensely sat back against the tree with a snort of protest.

"I'll keep watch. Relax." I bid him, my words holding weight. I needed him to. Relying upon his temper to keep him awake was a solution that would eventually fail him and if we were to beat Anubis we would have to be in better condition than this.

He became curiously still. "I can't" he scowled quietly after a moment. Yet despite his words he did close his eyes, warily. The copper notes in his eyelashes caught in the sun light even as his eyelids meshed together in a tentative crease.

"Stop looking at me." he muttered without needing to see me.

Heat rose up to my cheeks. I wasn't sure why being caught staring seemed suddenly so inappropriate. Despite what looked like an earnest attempt at it Kaiba's inability to relax seemed to be transferable.

"Alright. I'm going to wash up." I assured him. It was a worthy distraction. The feeling of half dried mud pulled against my skin and weighed down my clothes and I could not abide by the feeling of being unclean. It hadn't bothered at all while hosted by Yugi; hygiene and such personal matters were his to command and I had eagerly left such tasks to his private purview but with a lifetime of fresh linen and deep baths now mine to recall I found myself wanting for my own habits.

Yes, with so much sweat and mud a bath sounded like a blessing.

The cool sand of the beach eagerly worked its way between my toes as I peeled away the sandals from my feet and waded out to my ankles. The cold lake water was a blessing and no sooner was it lapping against my feet than the dryness of my throat shouted in chorus.

A muted shuffling of heavy material and tentatively sounded behind my shoulder as I knelt down to cup the clear water in my hands and spirited it down my throat. "I thought you were going to keep watch?" I turned and beheld as Kaiba's eyelids cracked open a fraction. It looked like that took an effort.

I smirked at Kaiba, unclasping my cloak as I did so. "I can do both."

Kaiba grunted. Apparently he didn't like that idea. Reluctantly he shut his eyes again "Hnh. Fine." He conceded, far too easily.

I caught my jewelry as I unlatched it rather than letting it fall to the ground and clatter. Silently I tossed it back toward the beach sand, glancing back to Kaiba as I did so. He had tilted his head away from me toward the forest.

It would seem even resting could and had been made into a battlefield by him. I had never seen someone nearing unconsciousness look so restless. As if responding to my curiosity he turned his body away from me and loosely curled his arms around himself, shuddering with a barely-there groan as one hand cradled his left shoulder. I wondered if there was something wrong with it.

I discarded my clothing into an orderly pile and slipped my knees beneath the lake's surface and into the cool water below. The sunlight darted across the surface as I agitated the water and I let myself relax into it further and further. The temperature was near enough divine. I waded to my thighs and removed the last of my undergarments, throwing the loincloth back to the shoreline and out of harms way before sinking slowly into its embrace.

My lips loosed a deep sigh and a chuckle of excitement as I felt the scales of a fish dart between my legs. Mana and I had spoken of going fishing soon after the festival. It had been a long time since I'd last done so.

I glanced back, wary that my splashing could have disturbed Kaiba but I need not of bothered. The careful poise with which he had rested his back to lean squarely against the tree behind him had been abandoned. He must have taken my moment of distraction as an opportunity to fall into a light sleep. In doing so had shifted to lie flat between the tree roots on the forest floor and loosely curled in on himself. His lips parted to moan softly as his hands clenched and tense against nothing. He looked so uncomfortable. From a distance he reminded me a bit of a new born horse lying on the ground; all long limbs and frantic energy. His arm pressed against his shoulder a little firmer as he coiled his legs closer to him in a strange wall of angles.

I doubted he would get any actual rest like this. It seemed to take all of his energy simply to remain unconscious against all the things clamoring to awaken him; the stiff breeze making him shiver, a rustle in the forest making his breathing pause, the sounds of the lake babbling or a fish jumping making his eyes clench tighter.

That returned me to the task at hand. A couple of fish could make for a good meal and it must have been at least a day since my last. Most likely Kaiba's too if I had to guess.

With a single lunge I snagged the fish by its body and lifted it out of the water, tossing to the shoreline before it could thrash its way out of my grip. They were small but easy to fish up by hand if you waited for long enough. Mahad had showed me this as a child. He had been demonstrating the merits of patience to Mana and I in a way our much younger minds could understand. He was a surely a skilled teacher.

A second fish swam lazily through the water, waggling its fins only enough to keep it stationary. It's lips soundlessly blubbered and my hand dove like a spear into the water and snatched it by its tail, flinging it away from me to land on the shore where it's predecessor now weakly flailed. A third caught my eye and I dove for it quickly but missed, this time rewarding myself with a splash of cool lake water to the face that coursed through my hair to drip down my chin. Mahad's expression as he slowly shook his head at my rushed strike was as clear in my imagination as though he was fishing here with me and I laughed at it.

"Be swift, but do not rush." I could hear him telling me; my drive to be the first to catch a fish on that day so long ago spiriting me toward the well-deserved fate of also being the first to slip over and make an embarrassing splash.

Mana had giggled and run around the beach cheering afterward, as she no longer had to remain quiet for fear of frighting our quarry away. By the end of the evening Mahad had been left with no choice but to carry the apprentice home on his back as she snored, loudly.

I was so fortunate to have my memories back and to find them full of so many warm days.

Chuckling at the memory had scared away all but one of the fish in the school and in its lack of foresight it selected itself to be next. It seemed oblivious to me and that suited my purposes. With a rush of water up my arm I struck down at it, needing to chase it an extra few inches as it darted deeper before cornering it with my fingers and tossing it over my shoulder in a fluid motion.

The expected soft thump of the fish hitting the grass instead replaced with a "What the -!"

I pivoted, toes flexing around the slippery stones of the lake bed as I turned back to behold Kaiba's stifled look of surprise as he brushed the fish that had landed on his shoulder off of him with a "Urg." His speedy reactions made him volt to his feet and whirl away from the thrashing fish hastily before his eyes could take in what it was that had assaulted him. As that realization cemented itself he stepped away from it calmly, crossing his arms in mild perturbment and fixing me with his blue stare.

"Run out of lectures so now you're throwing fish at me instead?" He mocked tonelessly. I rolled my shoulders in a shrug, finding his reaction amusing enough to grin at even while he attempted to smooth it over with a calmness Kaiba could never seem to cling to for long.

"I wasn't aiming for you." I noted.

"Yeah? Well guess what: It's hard to 'rest' when you're splashing around over here like a kid at a water park." He raised his palm a little and outstretched his first two fingers toward me in a hand gesture I couldn't recall seeing before. "Obviously." He added, as I arched an eyebrow at him.

Ah. "It wasn't my intention to wake you." Despite the jab Kaiba didn't seem terribly angry. For that reason alone I added "I apologize."

A soft 'Hnh' sound was his reply and he stared down at the three fish along the bank, nudging them into a pile with the corner of his boot. It was with surprise that I understood the noise, or that I realized I had come to understand it. It was a sound of token protest, when his heart or mind acknowledged he had no grounds to argue but his pride bid him to object anyway. After scowling at the fish he turned his head back to me.

"Whatever." He rolled his shoulder as though to loosen it up and stretched his neck to the side as he pushed against it. "I only sleep in twenty minute increments anyway".

That was likely to have been closer to two minutes than twenty and I couldn't tell if he was being serious or sarcastic. The comment was like a face down card that had too much potential to ruin the lightheartedness of the situation so I let it be and swapped tactics.

"Do you swim?"

Kicking the pile of fish he had just ordered away with his boot Kaiba sat down on the grass, crossing his legs as he watched me from the shore in a gesture that implied without words that no matter the answer to my question he had no intention of joining me.

"Of course I can swim." He replied, somewhat sourly. "I'm surprised you can." He smirked at that. "Fun trick for a guy that grew up in a litter box."

And just like that he was back to his usual self. It would seem we had 'made up', for now. Navigating the waves of Kaiba's anger without cards in hand or a duel arena between us was as exhausting as it was rewarding.

I smirked back at him, returning his expression.

I effortlessly reclined in the lake, letting it swallow my shoulders and tilting my head back to let the cold water cushion my skull. "I can do many things I had never thought of as the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle." It was a boast and I took pleasure in it – in knowing myself anew. Many of the more physical hobbies that came to me easily had not found a place in Yugi's daily life and so it was only here in this world with my memories returned I could enjoy them to their fullness.

"Like?" Kaiba asked gruffly, waiting for me to elaborate despite the boredom in his tone.

That surprised me, I hadn't been expecting him to be interested. I watched the clouds float above my head lazily. My list might seem very pedestrian to Kaiba, but it pleased me. For a moment I doubted the wisdom in answering him – knowing he may well laugh at the passions I had never even known were mine to possess… but he had asked.

"Senet. Swimming, riding –"

"-fishing." He interrupted. I leaned forward across the water, he was side eyeing the fish I had caught warily.

"Fishing." I agreed, "Hunting, fencing –"

"-I get it, all the 'primitive man' kinda bull." He interrupted again. I frowned at him for that; it was the reaction I had expected but lacked the venom it could have carried.

He snorted.

"Yes - yet this 'primitive' has also never once been bested by you in a fair contest." I taunted, my arrow finding its mark as Kaiba's jaw clenched.

"Hn. Touche."

I chuckled at his half-hearted objection and waded back toward the shoreline, pausing at the strange motion as Kaiba suddenly jerked his head in the opposite direction to me as though he'd been smacked and slapped a hand over eyes.

"Why the hell are you naked!"

"Oh." I glanced down, realizing I had almost waded to my lower hips as I returned to shore. I couldn't help it. I laughed wholly at Kaiba's unexpectedly coy reaction. "Because I'm swimming." Acceptable and practical standards of nudity differed between our worlds, but even by modern standards his response seemed immature.

"I'm sure I have nothing you haven't seen before, Kaiba." I teased, enjoying every moment of the utterly contradictory situation as Kaiba slowly disentangled his fingers from his eyes with an embarrassed growl of protest. After going so long without my own body I had come to rather enjoy the freedom of exposure.

"That doesn't mean I want to see your junk!" He snapped back, glaring at me defiantly.

"Then don't look." I shrugged with a smirk that I had no intention of hiding.

"Bastard." Kaiba muttered, turning away from me as I grinned at him again. This was unexpected but Kaiba was always very heavily clothed. Other than his face and hands I had never seen him expose his skin. Perhaps he was shy about matters of the human body.

"Looks like even you can't get away from everything unscathed though, huh." Kaiba observed sarcastically, a long finger pointing at the wound in my side even as he remained staring steadfast into any direction except the one I was occupying.

I hummed, my fingers ghosting across the slash. Moving around so much had agitated it and more blood came away on my fingers as I stroked it.

"It's just a cut." I assured him and parried his jab with "No one is invincible Kaiba, you know that."

"Tch." Ah, I had hit a sour note.

Kaiba's fingers pinched at the tunic I had left on the lake bank, easily spotting the wound in my clothing from the ruddy hue that marred the fabric. The linen had soaked up my blood hungrily, making the strain spread wider and look much worse than it really was. His eyes roved over it, holding in his hands and watching as the fabric fail to bend where my dried blood and hardened.

Abruptly he pulled his arm back and threw the tunic across the lake at me catapult-like. He was aiming for my head but I caught it out of the air easily, denying him his target.

"Wash your crap. It's gross."

I snatched the garment, holding it above the water. "Hypocrite. I fail to understand how you can lecture me while comfortably sitting there and nothing about yourself."

Kaiba's nails remained damaged from Anubis's mistreatment, a little blood having caught in them where a few had split. He noticed this belatedly and sneered at the offending digits as he tried to scratch a dried stain of black ooze from his knuckles. "I mean the blood. Don't be an idiot" he scolded, barking at me as he did so. "We can't go running around telegraphing our weak spots while there's a crazy bitch stalking us."

His tone irritated me but I relaxed my posture, able to see that there was a logic to this request.

"Show someone where to hit you, and guess what; that's where they'll hit you." He finished tersely, crossing his arms over his chest tightly.

I sighed and nodded, dropping my tunic into the lake and watching tendrils of my own blood instantly escape from the surly bonds of the linen and into the water's depths.

"I see your point." I conceded. It had seemed overly hawkish until the reason had been properly explained. Kaiba unfolded his legs and clambered back onto his feet.

"Put on some damn clothes." He snarked with finality as he glanced around the forest, striding off toward the treeline again.

"Where are you going?" I called from the water, raising an eyebrow as I worked the stain from my sash.

"To take a leak." Kaiba grunted and vanished into the wood.

Slowly I shook my head at the vernacular and turned my attention back to my clothes. The linen was light and airy, floating across the water's surface as I immersed it in sections. I pulled the final section of my robe beneath the water, and was promptly bitten across the palm.

Something foreign to my garb wriggled loose from the thicker folds, crawling onto my hand to escape being plunged deeper into the cold water. A pale green plant-typed scarab scuttled up my arm. Swarm of Scarabs had not only survived the Dust Tornado, but had hidden away in my robes...

Its beady red eyes beheld me without intelligence and abruptly its body shattered like glass, disintegrating on the wind - banished away.

"What?!" I pulled my hand out of the water as a black speck from the scarab's the tiny bite spread across my palm like ink. It smarted and my fingers twitched unbidden as the dark mark raced into an outline of its own design, forming a flower-like brand upon my skin.

Mark of the Rose gleamed against my flesh and with the pulse of a red aura it took control.


	14. Chapter 14

**Ano**

I did not allow the master into my mind.

His will ghosted across the periphery of my senses but unlike Teleia I did not welcome the master's penetration into my unlife.

With each second and every drop of sweat and blood shed by his enemies his power grew. Unseen strands of their life energy billowed back to the Master's tomb to restore his body to life as his foes awoke spluttering and bruised from the aftermath of Teleia's assault. At this rate I would not remain capable of ignoring him for long.

I set him from my thoughts while I still could and focused upon performing my role.

Placating the palace denizens into complacency had been a simple task.

In this body - the body of the Pharaoh's most trusted and respected champion - there was no suspicion of my duplicity. The priests nodded without protest and accepted my word that all was well and our steadfast young king would return shortly. Taking on campaigns such as these was not unheard of for this boy Pharaoh. It was refreshing for royalty to be so involved with matters beyond the upkeep of their bed chambers and the contents of their evening meal. In another life I might have even respected this Pharaoh's dedication to a more self-involved manner of peace-keeping.

While the High Priest remained unconscious I had delegated the duties of head of state to Priest Shimon. My host believed his age to be matched by his wisdom and he to make an appropriate substitute while the Pharaoh attended to matters elsewhere. With but an inclination of his head the elderly priest had accepted this charge and set about putting the palace to rights in the aftermath of my master's emergence. Sufficiently soothed, I suspected we would have no interference from the priesthood so long as they remained unaware of our campaign against the Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba. It was therefore with abject irritation that I beheld the spectacle Teleia insisted on making of the affair.

From a palace balcony I saw the beginnings of her folly. Upon the distant horizon the desert sand had begun to churn ominously, unnaturally. Teleia's intention was predictable. She thought to bury them within the desert's depths. To test the thickness of their skin? Foolish.

On a pigeon's white wings I had sailed through the open sky toward the source of her spell. Yet my small body bore me to my destination not quickly enough... I arrived only to be caught in a gust of wind the strength of which I had never known before. Scooped up in its clutches the storm had dragged me into the maw of some sort of wayward portal. As I tried and failed to fly fast enough to escape its pull I spied Teleia watching me from the sands below, grinning at me like a temple cat.

How fortuitous it was then, that in being captured by the spellbound tempest I had been spirited to the exact same forest as our foes while she remained in the desert beyond, now a great distance from her prey.

Joy was no longer something I was capable of, but I believed if it could be so I would feel it as I imagined her irately fussing with her hair in anger.

Yet I had more immediate charges to direct my attention to...

I perched on a branch, inconspicuous among the other strange chirping songbirds. This forest and these trees were alien to me. Thick. Green. Teeming with life. Not at all similar to the sparse desert shrubs and palms I knew. Something foreign from somewhere far away, much like the Pharaoh's pale companion. No doubt a result of his intrusion here.

From my high vantage point my eyes beheld as the Pharaoh jerked upright from washing his garment, shuddered, and then grew still. Teleia's spell had found a mark it would seem. His eyes beheld the floral sigil now branding his hand with comprehension - the comprehension that his body was no longer his to command. It was a feeling I knew too well. He could not deny the orders of our cohort with it branding his flesh and while Teleia remained at a distance from this place issuing such orders was a duty that fell to me.

I had to plan my actions wisely. I would not rush into foolishness and folly like Teleia had. Not again.

To play one boy against the other had no doubt been her intention. Whether through sorcery or womanly guile turning allies upon each other had always been a favored technique of hers. This could be turned to my advantage. The illusion of attempting to follow her plan through would provide a good cover under which to hide my true intentions to both herself and Anubis.

I ruffled my feathers at the knowledge that I must devise a way to lead these two to Anubis so they may destroy him.

It seemed they would make it easier for me than I had dared to hope. Fate and Teleia's interference had swept them away from the Pharaoh's palace and into a place I did not know, yet they had already found a way to track Anubis's essence to the tomb in which he sheltered. If they found him before he could fully recover his dark energies they would surely defeat him. All would become as it was meant to be. The dead would remain dead, as they belonged.

Against my better judgement I felt myself become impatient. The sleep of death had been denied me for so long. I yearned for the cool and the calm of its embrace.

How was it best to achieve my goal? The journey back to the palace was unknown to me, and Anubis's tomb was distant across these strangely shifting lands. With each wasted second I felt my risen soul grow more rancid under the contemptible command of the Master's necromancy. I needed to act with haste, before his strength could be restored or the pressure of his insidious will whittled away my thoughts into mere madness and left me as little more than a roaring thrall once again.

A warm breeze rippled through my wings as I contemplated the conundrum. To be swift on the wind and fly to the master's stronghold on a birds wings would undoubtedly be quicker than trudging the wilds, especially at their current rate of travel and physical condition. Was the spell that granted me this avian form transferable to my 'enemies'? I was no great mage or sorcerer. It was fortunate then that my host was a magician of such skill. I committed Mahad's knowledge of the mystical arts to the task of rendering a solution given that at my disposal. He did not fight me as I probed him. This surprised me. He was an oddly obliging host. Though I could sense him listening to each thought and watching my every move he did little but observe.

From that which was possible his magical learnings produced a plan.

It was... creative and I could indeed make it seem accidental and inexplicable to both parties.

It could also turn on me quickly if I was discovered. A risk. A gamble. But I had little to lose. Perhaps my host anticipated this.

Very well. Let it be done.

Mark of the Rose responded to my bidding as I called to it, instructing it to puppeteer the Pharaoh out of the water with a wordless thought.

Mahad's heart swelled with pride as the Pharaoh visibly fought the magical compulsion - gritting his teeth and tensing against his own muscles with each unwanted step. He was indeed powerful to be able to resist even that much. I locked his mouth shut, yet he growled and hummed out words in spite of the limitation like a prisoner trying to shout through a gag.

'Give him his voice', a thought bid me and I was unsure in that moment if my host was truly as passive as I had first assessed. Regardless of the origin of the thought, the council was not without merit. One could learn much from a man's words and these boys were no exception. I had already watched them size one another up, loudly quarrel and argumentatively reconcile, then had followed the Pharaoh's line of sight to notice how oddly Seto Kaiba carried one shoulder. I wondered what else might be revealed to an attentive ear and eye.

I hopped from branch to branch to watch the spectacle as I drove the Pharaoh further into the forest in pursuit of his pale companion. He was not far, tensely tending to something with his back exposed. The Pharaoh's arm fought against my command and shuddered and jerked as I compelled it to reach to his armor and draw one of his spells out from the strange deck of cards we each wielded as if they where the priesthood's coveted magical tablets.

I did not know the contents of the Pharaoh's 'deck', yet Mahad did. He offered an acceptable spell and as Seto Kaiba turned and began speaking to the Pharaoh I obliged my host's suggestion before the element of surprise could be fully lost. An arrow of magic spirited itself into the Pharaoh's hand and I bid he coil his arm backward like a bow string.

I released his mouth, and then the arrow.

**Kaiba**

Water had gotten into my lighter. The flame sputtered out twice before finally catching. I'd never needed a smoke break so badly. It was damn near 'godly, if that was what you were into. It was hard to tell if that was the nicotine doing its job or just getting a minute of fucking peace to rally my thoughts without being stared at.

Sunlight focused through a magnifying glass had nothing on his eyes. I could almost physically feel it when they landed on me even if I didn't see it. I told him to stop watching me, and then I caught myself doing the same to him as he stood there butt-naked telling me about himself like we were pals out on a nudist camping trip.

I suspected his momentary peep show was going to haunt me. I was trying to blot out anything unnecessary I might have seen from my mind. If I didn't it was something I'd be seeing every time I closed my eyes at night. Great. It was a whole new type of vague ghost-magic 'penalty game'. I would have taken the attack from a Wicked Worm Beast over that image any time.

Though it was totally impossible each inch of his exposed skin made me more and more suspicious he was some sort of genetically engineered life form. He sure looked like he'd been designed by a committee. He had the bronzed skin, the high cheekbones and the narrow hips, the proportionally wider shoulders and easily as much lean muscle as I'd manage to build up. Sure, he was still amusingly short but he looked compact and stronger for it - not an extra inch of unnecessary bone or pound of fat on his whole body.

My observations were only academic in motive. If I did continue updating the Pharaoh hologram after this was over then this was all useful data: the way his muscles moved, how his chest rose and fell as he breathed and the volumes of different parts of his muscle groups meshed together into the cohesive whole. Given how inbred ancient Egyptians pharaohs were historically known to be a part of me was hoping he'd have some compromising defect I could pick at, like webbed toes or an extra set of teeth.

He didn't.

He had a few scars and nicks dotted across him from a lifetime of rigorous activities; the well-healed ones you collect as a kid that fade to just look as much a part of you as all the unblemished bits. They detracted nothing, making him look powerful instead of flawed. Most were probably from some of the hobbies he'd just tried and failed to not look all excited to tell me about. Mundane conversation like that seriously didn't suit him. I was glad he stopped there before lowering himself to stupid things like swapping favorite colors. Then again my reply to that one was pretty obvious. White, of course. It stood out from the rest of life's boring browns and greys. A single white dove sat in a tree above my head as though planted there just to prove me right - it was a hundred times more noticeable than all the other obnoxiously loud chirping chickadees.

There was a pattering sound behind me as something dripped onto the leaves poking up from the forest floor.

He moved quietly, I'd give him that, but nowhere near as quietly as he'd need to in order to catch me off guard. I stubbed out my cigarette. Two minutes of privacy must be too much to ask for, but then I'd grown used to that while Gozaburo was still kicking.

...What the hell was he doing?

He was completely sodden, his stupid outfit so thin that the linen plastered itself to his skin and hid absolutely nothing.

"You could have dried them first." I remarked as dryly as I damn well could, glancing over my shoulder at him. He looked composed despite the fact he was soaking wet. It was surreal. Things with him usually were though so it all added up.

Whatever.

His expression was new. He cautiously kept glancing at his hands while curling his fingers and then looking me up and down me, like a window shopper sizing up a questionable purchase.

I lowered my voice. "What's your problem?"

He didn't reply, though he did start fiddling with his Duel Disk.

How his hair was somehow light enough to stand up on end even when wet and yet thick enough to repel water was something for scientific investigation. It had been impossible to render accurately in my holograms since my data was lacking. How did it act under different conditions? What did it feel like? What was the texture and how should the surface of the strands defuse the light? I hadn't had any of that information and had gone through several holographic prototypes before I was satisfied with the result.

He strode closer, water droplets scattering off of the angles of his body as he did so with a weird look in his eyes. Was he giving me the silent treatment as pay back? And he thought I was petty. He probably figured I was going to make another break for it without him. The thought had crossed my mind.

"Would you relax. I'm not going to ditch you." I jeered.

Not while he had the only fully functional Duel Disk at least. I had a lot more riding on this than he did – to him Anubis was just some annoying pest scurrying around his private after-party but to me he was my only way out of this sand-blasted mess.

His eyes jumped from me to the card he had drawn and then he made a noise somewhere between humming and choking before wrenching open his mouth.

"Watch out!" The urgent yell was the only warning I got before an arrow sailed passed my face, clipping me as it flew past my cheek. Great now it was bruised to hell and sliced up...

And did he just shoot a fucking arrow at me?

"What the hell!?" I wheeled around to face him properly as Living Arrow de-spawned in a scattering of golden light.

His face was concerned but his body language was all off – marching toward me swinging his arms with the purpose and intent that last time got me a punch in the face.

"Dodge left." He added, shouting at me with short words. I don't know why I even reacted – like hell I'd do anything he said usually, but for some reason I twitched to the left just in time to avoid getting stabbed in the side as he called Excalibur into his hand and jumped toward me with it. The blade lodged in the tree behind me - formerly the location of my ribs - and his hand coiled around it to pull it out of the bark with a couple of hasty jerks.

"Jump!" he advised next as he swept down low to try and kick my legs out from under me. I hopped on the spot like a fucking bird narrowly avoiding the sweep of his muscular leg.

"You want to explain to me what's going on here?" I bit out, eyes glancing down at my Duel Disk.

"Eyes on me -" He demanded "- Don't let your guard fall." He finally yanked his sword free, twisting it around in the air and glancing down the blade to inspect it before leveling it back in my direction.

"I'm very quick." He cautioned, though not as smugly as he could of.

"Tch." Yeah, he was. I ducked my head as he swung the blade for my skull.

I smirked at the irony. This was rich. Not as rich as I was, but not too far off. "Well look who's the possessed one now." I taunted. "That's gotta sting." I wanted to rub it into his smug face and his responding irritated scowl looked so good I'd hang it on my bedroom wall.

"I'm not possessed. Mark of the Rose is compelling me" He parried, frowning at me openly.

Sure, why not. I guess that made sense. I glimpsed down at his hand and saw the makeshift tattoo. An angry red light shone out of it in all directions.

"So it could get control of your body but not your big mouth huh? Figures." His frown turned prissy and disapproving, the corners of his mouth down turning like a little kid's.

"Just De-Spell me before I hurt you." he ordered, like I was his damn lackey.

"As if." Like hell I was going to do that.

He was five foot nothing and probably weighed only slightly more than Mokuba. It looked like he had some training but ye olde swordsmanship skills or not, I liked my chances here if we were going to duel it out the old fashioned way. And we were; I would make sure of it. This was all too good to pass up. It was my opportunity to get him back for slugging me earlier – playing around with him a little bit was fair game to even out that score. Once I'd socked him in the jaw a few times then maybe I'd look into fixing him.

Atem's face turned from being disapproving to wary, like somehow he already knew what I was about to say and do and was responding in advance. Bastard.

I mentally searched my cards for something to take on him and Excalibur with and summoned the first one that came to mind into my hand. Sword of Soul was heavier than I thought it would have been and I had to grip it's black hilt in two hands like a claymore. "Since your attacking me I guess I get to fight back, right?" I observed, hefting my blade to get a feel for its weight before raising it into a fighting stance in front of me. The kendo lessons from when I was a kid felt like a life time ago. In fact both my biological and adoptive fathers had managed to die in the interim so I guess they were in a way.

I felt my mouth pull into a small smirk and in Atem's eyes I watched my reflection become intent with that same primal focus and a dark intensity that had served me countless times before like a loyal butler.

"Don't be a fool. Do not allow your curiosity to distract you. This is serious." Atem lectured predictably, his eyes glancing down the length of Sword of Soul's golden blade before meeting mine again.

"I'm counting on that." I assured him. That just made him glower harder. I was always serious, did he not get that by now?

I lunged for him, easily bridging the distance between us and swept my sword forward. I took him by surprise and at the last moment switched up the swings trajectory to fly over his head at his ridiculous hair. He dodged out of the way but not before I clipped the end of one of those stupid golden stalks.

He watched scandalized as less than an inch of it slowly fluttered away on the wind.

"Stop enjoying this and destroy Mark of the Rose!" He barked but I could barely hear it over the roar of my own laughter. Looks like someone had reached the end of his patience. Too bad for him; I was just getting started.

I composed myself and taunted him with a grin that reflected exactly how little I cared.

"Hnh. I'll get onto it after a few rounds." I tightened my grip again, ready to prune some other part of his hair down to size.

He made a sound of discontent and then steeled himself.

"I'm an accomplished swordsman and you're not. There'll be no contest between us." He proclaimed with aggravating confidence as though bragging he was so much better than me was going to make me not want to attack him. He was off his game today if he thought that was the case.

"Better stop writing cheques with your mouth, Pharaoh. I'll always cash in on a challenge!" I reminded him as he finally lowered himself into a fighting pose. His glare was intense. I almost could believe he really did want to cut me in half as he jumped at me and pulled his sword back to strike.

"Are you immune to common sense, or do you just choose to discard it as it suits you!" He barked, pausing for a moment as the red light of Mark of the Rose flared again to issue his body another order. "Dodge up and right." He announced.

I did it, reacting to the instruction without a second thought and successfully dodging a blow to my kidney.

"Left-" He added, and I darted left as though acting on his command to avoid being sliced across my right thigh.

"-I got it!" I snarled, blocking and lashing back. Landing any one single lethal blow through my guard would be impossible, I was making sure of it. Looks like he'd decided to just try cutting me to ribbons instead.

With an agility that I was damned to ever admit superseded my own he kicked at the side of my knee cap to buckle it slightly, leapt back and surged forward in a charge before I could recover my footing. He was lighter on his feet than me, I'd give him that, but I was stronger and I'd prove it right here and now! His blade was aimed to my heart but like hell I was going to let it get there. Deflecting it took all my strength, but the feeling of outright overpowering him was damn addicting as his wrist jerked back from the recoil.

He danced out of the way of my blade and turned on the spot in a whirlwind-like counter strike. "Left again!"

"Tch!" I moved to match his order and I hated it. Was he trying to piss me off? "Stop helping!" I shouted and managed to catch him off guard by kicking him solidly in the gut. Twirl around that one, Pharaoh. He bent double for a second and I was reminded that a normal person should feel guilty considering he was under a spell, but I didn't. This was a duel. Everything was on the table. Everything was to be fought for. It was almost like a game of Duel Monsters; eye to eye with Atem, parrying his strikes and watching him counter mine, each exchange edging one of us toward victory without any guarantee of who that person was.

"You kick like a horse." Atem sputtered in surprise, holding his side. Strange, because I hadn't kicked him there.

With an intake of breath he straightened up and in one smooth motion stabbed Excalibur into the ground. His arm whipped around to his Duel Disk, summoning up a card. Gold light illuminated the forest as the yellow tones played across the lean lines of his face.

Atem watched his own arm move out of his control with a muted curiosity, as though he was watching some abstract theatre performance.

"Now you know how Yugi felt during all your duels." I mused with a smirk.

His eyes flicked back to me in an instant. Sure, he'd been disapproving and pissy about our little sword fight but abruptly his expression turned cold and closed off. It became hard, and utterly unrevealing as his stare reassessed me.

"I guess he got used to it." I added, interested in the reaction, wanting to see if I could squeeze it out of him a second time.

His card was played face down, glowing against the forest floor by our feet as he stooped slightly to reclaim Excalibur. "What are you implying, Kaiba?" His eyes narrowed and became less than friendly as he redrew his weapon from the ground.

Well wasn't this interesting.

Yugi had stepped away from dueling – not officially, but obviously. He'd settled down to his school work. It was the honorable thing to do since he didn't win any of the fights that Atem fought for him. I almost respected it. Out of all of the dweebs that made up Atem's entourage Yugi was the only one who I'd consider perhaps entertaining the idea of possibly being 'friends' with, if things had been different; if being 'friends' with people was a thing that I actually wanted. But we weren't and they weren't and it wasn't so it wasn't worth thinking about. In fact thinking about it pissed me off.

I refocused on Atem, itching to push his buttons. "Weird role reversal, huh? Now your in the back seat watching someone else fight for you." I dodged a blow but then caught a kick to the shin in the process. "You know, he never even talks about you." I pressed, trapping and stamping down on Atem's foot with my own as he tried to kick me again. He strangled a yelp, it instead coming out as a high pitched growl. Boots beat sandals in combat, that was for sure. "It's like you didn't exist to them." I taunted, the words rushing out of my mouth with every successful parry and failed dodge.

"You want to talk about this now!" Atem questioned, loudly, angrily. His eyes almost seemed to flare crimson at the idea.

"You bet I do." I liked his response. I was touching a nerve.

Atem's voice softened and his gaze turned inward and pensive. It made for a weird juxtaposition as his body kept attacking without missing a beat. "I'm sure Yugi has his reasons…"

Reasons Atem clearly had no clue about then. For two guys joined at the brain they really had gone their separate ways without a glance back. Using the Battle City Tournament as an excuse to deploy a city-wide surveillance system throughout Domino was the gift that kept on giving. Specially designed sensors searched 24 hours a day for certain keywords and compiled them into a daily report. It was state of the art and flawless and it was how I knew for a fact that Yugi and his little gang never discussed 'Atem' or 'the Pharaoh'.

For a while I'd wondered if the tech was performing properly. I'd been suspicious that Yugi hadn't mentioned him even once but investigation led me to only one conclusion – that Yugi was the asset not performing to my expectations, not my system. It didn't concern me and it wasn't important enough to waste my time thinking about, but I'd expected Atem's impact on his life to be as undeniable as it had been on mine...something that crept in at the edges of his thoughts at odd moments and got talked about in the fallout. Clearly that wasn't the case.

So what even were they to each other?

"They didn't even mourn you." I didn't know why that came to mind.

It bothered me, I realized.

It felt weird to admit to myself, but it bothered me that no one reacted to him 'crossing over' or 'passing on' or whatever the acceptable terminology was. The dead always got a send off; some teary eyed funeral and long boring wake, or in Gozaburo's case a one minute silence at KaibaCorp and a hasty corporate rebranding. It bothered me there had been nothing for Atem except a big hole to fill in with a whole lot of nothing.

He glared at nothing in particular, his focus elsewhere.

"If you have a point Kaiba, I suggest you arrive at it soon." Irritation was in his voice and I noticed he didn't bother shouting which way I should be dodging this time. I blocked his strike to my gut anyway but from the momentum he ducked and pivoted to run his sword across my thigh in a sweeping strike. I hissed sharply as my skin parted beneath his sword, a bit of my blood coming away on it. He followed with a second slice to my upper arm and a third to my shin.

"Yugi… he has every right to forget me. To be free of me. He deserves a life without a shadow at his back" he added. His tone was still distracted and thoughtful but his eyes were back on me now.

"Hnh." I couldn't think of a better reply than that, not while he drove me back a few steps with the endless flurry of strikes.

I didn't want to understand Atem. That hadn't ever been my goal. The only thing I ever needed to know about him was how to beat him. That must have been why it threw me off balance to realize that I could do more than comprehend his feelings- I could also empathize. That was rare.

His sentiment, it was the same way I felt about Mokuba. That skulking fear that it wasn't kidnappers or ridiculous magical nonsense or Gozaburo's 'parenting' that would mark him, but me. That it would be simply my existence that would strangle the life from him just by forcing him to grow up in my shade like a plant blocked off from sunlight.

It was a brother's concern.

Is that what Yugi and Atem were to each other?

Atem took another little chunk out of me as I halted, suddenly paralyzed by my own thoughts. How was Mokuba? Was time passing the same way here as in the living dimension? The new cuts stung but I could hardly feel them. His investors pitch for his green initiative was coming up; I should be there to sit in on it and make sure it went smoothly.

"Kaiba."

Atem jostled me back to our duel and this time he looked contrite. Damn him. He had no idea what I was thinking about and had no fucking right to look concerned!

Despite the irritation a series of conclusions fell into place in my head.

Even if I had succeeded in returning Atem to life in Yugi's body things wouldn't have gone back to how they used to be; how I wanted them to be. Instead he'd probably have sat unobtrusive at the back of Yugi's mind for the rest of our lives, more content to wait out Yugi's lifetime and return to the afterlife rather than impose upon his precious host. He'd become a non-entity, even less alive than he'd ever been before. Just some slowly fading phantom, not the invincible duelist I wanted him to be, gleaming in gold in the duel area like the Duel Disk color I'd customized for him.

It would have been a waste to return someone so commanding and so powerful to a mere shell of himself even though the bastard had done exactly that to me when he'd put me in a coma.

I'd almost regretted my plan because before it'd been honorless, but now I also realized I'd miscalculated the results too. Things wouldn't go back to how they were. Sealing Atem back inside of the Puzzle wouldn't have done anything except rob him of his individualism, his identity…. An identity he now remembered enough to miss.

So I'd be needing my old Pharaoh hologram after all...

Whatever.

It would never measure up to the real thing but I could make it close enough.

If I watched closely I could replicate all of him. I could reproduce how hard and sharply tapered his knuckles were. I could remake the callouses on the ends of his fingers and the prominence of his cheekbones and the tautness of his skin. The smell of his breath; of his body; of his hair – each one unique to him, not just temporarily appropriated from Yugi - these were all things I could simulate. But I needed to know one thing for sure.

Swinging for his head was easy since he was a midget and my consistent strikes to that same point meant I took him completely off guard by dropping down and copying a move he'd made earlier. In one arcing kick I swept his feet out from under him using his own technique and dropped my body weight onto his to pin him to the forest floor.

He looked pretty good trapped between me and the grass and he even flushed a bit. I'd be embarrassed too if I'd fallen for my own move. If he was going to underestimate me then he was in for an unpleasant shock - card games, languages, martial arts, there wasn't anything I couldn't make a quick study of.

Mark of the Rose pulsed again on his hand as he tried to throw me off of him, so I leaned a little bit more of my weight onto him and trapped both his wrists in one hand just above his head.

With the other I slowly reached up and yanked Atem by the hair, needing to know for certain what the real texture of it should be.

"Ow! What are you d-"

"-We're still dueling, remember." I interrupted. It was as good an excuse as I was ever going to get. My hand stayed right there in his hair, snatching a fistful of it to keep him still.

Atem was unsure what I was up to judging by his stupid frown but ultimately could do absolutely nothing but watch perplexed unless he wanted his hair ripped out at the root. Very slowly he leaned into my grip, probably to avoid that very scenario. He stayed silent for once, but I could see his eyes intently darting around my face in my peripheral vision as I tugged on one of the strands.

Wondering what they felt like for so long made it weird to finally hold one of the ridiculous blonde bangs in my hands. I snagged the one I'd manage to slice the end off earlier and ran it between my thumb and finger. It was smooth; possibly they could be even silky to the touch if the sand and desert wind hadn't dried it to feel coarse and knotted. I'd suspected similar from a visual inspection of Yugi's and programmed a very close estimation into my holographic Pharaoh but no well-informed guess could ever rival hands-on experience. Now I knew for sure. The knowledge wasn't comforting, even as it added to the completeness of my referential database.

Atem interrupted my inspection.

"What are you doing?" he repeated, each word spoken slowly. His eyes narrowed cautiously even as his voice dropped low, so low I could almost have missed hearing it except for an added huskiness that made it cut through the air like a knife.

I glared at him and the unexpected tone. I didn't understand the abrupt change.

This experiment was over.

I got off of him and rose to my feet. He caught his breath and after a moment of lying there dazed on the ground like one of those fish he'd snared earlier Mark of the Rose's red glow forced him to stand back up.

He was sweaty and faintly panting. I'd never seen him look like that before.

A bead of sweat dripped from his hairline down his face. I was running around in a now sliced-up flight suit but he was the one who'd be needing a second dip in the lake after we were done here from the look of it. That made me smirk. It was evidence that this duel was more evenly matched than the pompous blowhard thought it'd be. I shoved him backward and swung my sword at his just to prove that point and they collided in mid air. He'd recovered quickly. We struggled to overpower each other as my blade scraped against his and the sensation of actual enjoyment struck me like lightening as aftershocks from the clash burst up my arm.

This was fun, I realized. Pointless, but fun. I hadn't done anything 'just for fun' in years. It was novel, though of course for me to really enjoy it there had to be the chance to cause some actual damage as well.

I'd been so caught up in what I was doing that I'd almost forgotten why I was doing it. Across from me Atem leaned into his blade with all of his strength as our swords pushed together. He was actually within arm's reach so fuck this little tug of war. It was time for my revenge. I pulled one hand off of my sword's hilt, packaged it up into a fist and rammed it solidly into his cheek.

He gasped at my avenging punch.

His angry shout of "Are you finished now?" and maligned glare was worth more than my entire bank account.

Yeah, I was. Amusing as it was there wasn't any reason to keep this going.

Before I could reply Mark of the Rose pulsed again. Atem heaved his weight against our weapons and with one less hand hanging onto the hilt, Sword of Soul was almost jarred out of my grip by his push. He was on me in a blink and this time aiming for my heart.

In a last ditch attempt to protect myself I pulled Sword of Soul out in front of me like a shield and it shattered into glass fragments as he struck all the way through it. I gritted my teeth for a moment. Sword of Soul was a monster card and its destruction felt like a punch to the gut.

"You've lost again Kaiba. Now end this." Atem pronounced, pointing his blade at my throat as I struggled to recover in time to react. He had another thing coming! I stood up straight and loomed over him with as much height I could despite the compromising position.

"I don't take orders." Especially his.

He deftly tossed his sword into the air, catching it so its hilt now pointed towards me. My eyes mapped out the trajectory as it sailed through the air and flipped in his hand. It was an impressive show of dexterity. It was also a distraction.

With a rush of energy he lunged forward and slammed the hard hilt against my left shoulder.

"Ghn!" I tried to stamp out the instinct to yell; a left over lesson from Gozaburo.

With a little additional leverage against the joint he rammed the hilt further into my body and one final push against it was all it took. The shoulder popped free of its socket. Damnit! How had he fucking known?

I fucking hissed through my teeth at the feeling. I'd forgot how fucking gross it felt.

"Are you alright?" Atem shouted, full of concern judging by the way his eyebrows creased. The question was redundant and I wouldn't have bothered replying even if I had been paying attention to him right then.

"Kaiba?" he demanded. He really couldn't take being ignored for even one second, could he. He just dislocated my shoulder, of course I wasn't 'alright'!

"Shut up!" I snarled.

Atem smoothly stepped back as I lashed at him with a kick and missed. It was hard to aim through the pain. Willingly or not, all of my focus became fixated on the assessing damage. My arm hung limply and spasmed rapidly as the dislocated shoulder sat at an unnatural angle.

Screw this.

I whirled us both around to trap Atem against the tree and then hoisted him up by his neck, enough to make it uncomfortable but not enough to cut off his air. I held him up by one hand and grabbed the other with my damaged arm while Atem lashed out to try and strike me. It fucking hurt to move it, but my grip made up for the loss of my shoulder's mobility. With the correct amount of pressure against his wrist his fingers reflexively loosened and Excalibur slipped through his grip.

I'd taken a lot of blows to lure him in and he'd sliced me up like a loaf of bread and dislocated my shoulder, but I'd finally fucking disarmed him.

"Very good." Atem praised with concern as the sword flew from his hand to clatter against the forest floor and de-spawned. "Now would you finally De-Spell me!"

"Fine." I agreed sourly. It's not like I could keep going at him one-handed anyway and I'd let it go too far already. I should have quit while I was ahead. Actually enjoying myself was a sure sign that something big was about to fuck up and now my shoulder was compromised, however there was the unresolved issue of the face down card lingering by our feet. Who knows what it was, or how it would react given that this 'game' seemed to be treating us as monsters along with everything else in our decks.

"What's your face down card?" I eyed it suspiciously. My paranoia was completely justified. Turning an almost certain loss on its head with a final card was Atem's stock and trade after all.

"It's –" Atem began to reply confidently and then abruptly paused. The confidence never left his face, even as he slowly closed his eyes and admitted boldly "I don't know."

"You don't know?" I repeated through gritted teeth. How the hell could he not know his own card?

"You were distracting me as I drew it. I must have never looked, you ass!" I'd never heard him outright curse me out before. It was almost amusing. There would be a queue of people lining up around a Domino city block just for the chance to do the same.

"You have only yourself to blame." He defended, Mark of the Rose compelling him to thrash in my hold and only stilling when I made my grip on his neck just tight enough to become restrictive.

"Great." I replied tonelessly. "We'll just have to find out the old fashioned way then."

Atem remained silent and didn't even bother to preach to me what a bad idea that was. Good. Let him save his words because we'd wasted enough cards on this little intermission already and I wasn't going to burn a useful mitigation combo at something he'd just thrown down without enough thought to even bother remembering, Mark of the Rose or not.

For lack of a better way to trigger the damn thing I kicked it with the toe of my boot.

Dragon Capture Jar reared up from the floor as the mystery card was revealed. The card art was as familiar to me as the back of my hand. If I made a list of all my most hated cards it would right up there with Kuriboh and Wheeler's idiotic gambling cards. It wasn't a mainstay of Atem's usual decks; he must have added it in at the card selector just to piss me off. Bad move.

"There are no dragons on the field, you dolt." I observed.

Atem looked just as confused as I was. He raised an eyebrow at the card. So even the 'King of Games' could screw up, but only if he was being possessed by something. His hand whipped back to his Duel Disk to pull a following card. Some sort of combo then?

"There's more." He cautioned, watching his fingers as they tensed.

His hand moved with that same speedy flourish as always, but I could see this time he managed to catch a glimpse at what he'd drawn. His eyes opened a little wider even as his hand slapped the card down and into play.

"I'm playing Polymerization." He noted, the card rendering into existence in gold particles at the exact same time so he may as well have saved his breath.

"I see that." I replied, unimpressed.

With Sword of Soul destroyed there were no monsters left on the field to fuse together.

The wary curiosity that filled Atem's eyes as he watched himself implement the card turned abruptly to a grim realization.

"Watch out, it means to-" and that was the last thing I heard as the Duel Disk registered the fusion command with a muted beep.


	15. Chapter 15

**Mokuba**

"Tszzt. Tszzt. Tszzt."

Ugh. Seriously?

I blindly groped around for my phone. Who calls at - I cracked my eyes open and squinted through them. It was light in my bedroom. Like, really bright. Like mid day bright.

Did I sleep through the whole morning? So much for a quick nap.

"It's Mokuba." I reported into the phone - as if the person calling on this number didn't already know that.

"Mr. Kaiba -" Oh, it was Roland. Weird. He sounded serious. "-The security team has reported intruders on the premises. Please be vigilant."

"Intruders?" Suddenly I was wide awake and jamming the phone into the crook of my shoulder so I could keep talking as I pulled my clothes back on.

"And they didn't trip the proximity alarm? Where are they?" I demanded.

Whoever it was they were in for a nasty surprise - Seto had been working on something for the mansion's security system before he left and I had no idea what it was. People didn't try breaking in here often enough for it to have been tested yet but knowing my brother it'd be all kinds of lethal. There was no mercy given to anyone cowardly enough to come after us where we slept.

"They climbed in through a window on the first floor. They were last seen holding up in the study in the east wing. Please remain in your room until the situation is resolved, Mr. Kaiba."

As if! That was the study down the hall - the one I'd been working in, and I'd left Seto's blueprints out on the desk like an idiot!

I hung up on Roland and sprinted down the corridor. There was a commotion up ahead; a lot of loud footsteps running around and shouting but I wasn't afraid. This was my home. I knew this place like the back of my hand. There was a bust of some lady on a plinth right opposite the study door and I ducked behind it to watch what was happening.

I peeked inside and immediately recognized the 'intruders'.

"Intruders located." One of the more junior guards reported into his ear piece as he rounded the corner. Fuguta followed behind him at a sprint. Good thing too, the rookie moved to pull a gun on them but Fuguta stopped him with a hand gesture before he could pull it out of his jacket.

"Whoaaaah!" Joey shouted.

Looks like he recognized the gesture. He threw his hands in the air. Yugi must of missed it. He glanced from the guards to Joey and back again looking a bit lost and belatedly copied Joey. It was almost funny to watch.

"We ain't intruders!" Joey barked, like a dumb kid arguing he didn't deserve a detention. He turned from the rookie guard to Fuguta. "Yug's been here before! You've seen us both like a tonne a'times!"

Yugi nodded along with Joey's words and added onto them, trying to go the diplomatic route as normal.

"That's right! I'm-"

Like there was anyone who worked directly with my brother who didn't know who Yugi Mutou was. I think Roland and Fuguta even kinda knew when it was Yugi in control and when it was the Pharaoh. As much as they could know it, anyway.

"I'm sorry mister Mutou, but your name is no longer on the mansion's Permitted Persons list." Fuguta promptly cut him off.

"Both of you are trespassing." He was sympathetic, but stern.

"Oh." Yugi replied. The sound was half confused and half questioning.

Joey hadn't ever been on it to begin with of course, but Yugi had ever since Duelist Kingdom. I dunno if he was more surprised that he'd actually made the list in the first place, or that he'd been removed from it.

Whatever. It was time to break this up before the rookie accidentally shot Joey or something dumb.

"Seto took you off it a few months back." I informed them, taking a step through the doorway.

Fuguta looked at me and moved out of my way to let me passed.

"We're sorry to wake you, Mr. Kaiba." He added.

"I see." Yugi murmured to himself softly.

Joey's way too loud voice almost drowned it out. "You were sleepin'? It's like three o'clock in the afta'noon."

It was three? Already? Jeez. I shrugged the information away and ignored Joey to speak over him to Fuguta.

"It's fine. You guys can lower the alarm." I told them, nice and casually. I didn't exactly want a visit from these two right now, but throwing them out didn't seem right... not after all the times they'd helped me and Seto out.

"Yes, Mr. Kaiba." Fuguta and the other guard replied, loudly and promptly, like they had just been given an order by my brother. They bowed at the same time and left the room. Fuguta closed the door behind him but I could still hear him talking to his earpiece through the wood as he called off the search.

"Sorry for this. We tried the front door first, but your butler turned us away" Yugi explained wide-eyed.

He seemed earnest.

"So you just thought you'd climb in a window?" Man you couldn't take your eyes of Yugi and his pals for a single moment - they got into such weird situations.

"That was my idea!" Joey bragged, puffing out his chest and jabbing his thumb into it to look all impressive.

"And that seemed like a good plan?" Of course it did. When these guys got something into their head they usually seemed to pull it off no matter what. I squinted at them in mock disbelief and stifled a yawn.

"Man, you look like a zombie-" Joey poked playfully. Yugi added at the exact same moment "-We can come back later if now's not a good time."

Did I look that bad?

I rubbed my eyes and glared at them, suddenly feeling all sorts of self-conscious and a lot less amused.

"Matter of fact, no, it's not a good time. But since you two just broke into my house I guess you have a good reason?" I replied, just focusing on Yugi. I wasn't sure I could handle them tag-teaming a conversation right now.

"Some house-." Joey quipped.

"-I." Yugi began and then frowned like he was deciding what to say. "I wanted to see how you were doing... after the museum."

Oh yeah. That. Hard to believe that was just yesterday.

"I'm fine." Weird how reflexive that reply was.

"Suuuure ya'are" Joey drawled.

Yugi looked just as unconvinced. "You don't look fine." He agreed gently as he glanced around the room. They weren't going to let up and I was running on fumes.

"Seto still isn't back yet." That was obvious. "So I stayed up all night working on something." For some reason the second bit felt like a confession. Maybe because it was opening a door for them to pry into our business. Hell, a sentence like that pretty much invited them to stick their noses in.

They didn't disappoint and I felt gross for failing to live up to my brother's philosophy of never relying on anyone else, but it was a relief.

"You were working on this?" Yugi homed in on the blueprints on my desk like a missile. He picked the top one up really gently but I still had to fight the urge to slap it out of his hand. Those flimsy sheets were my only chance to get to Seto.

He turned the sheet over slowly as he read over the tiny scrawling notes and formulas crammed in next to circuit diagrams and design schematics. I don't know if he recognized Seto's handwriting from the hot second they were all in high school together. Maybe.

"It's what Kaiba used to cross dimensions?" Yugi observed, guessing it all in one.

No point lying and it was pretty obvious when the blueprints were piled up all over my desk.

"Yeah. H-" I was going to ask how he'd known but a lump caught in my throat. Suddenly I wanted to bawl again and I wasn't going to. I nodded my head as Yugi read the words "Dual Dimension System" aloud from the top of the first sheet. It was the only bit written in plain Japanese.

"Heh. Sure sounds like somethin' Kaiba would come up with." Joey scoffed.

"What language is this?" Yugi questioned, squinting at the tiny characters.

I shrugged and then gulped, taking that last moment to try squashing down that urge to just loose it.

"Could be anything." My voice sounded level.

Yugi raised his eyebrows at me.

"Seto speaks like twelve languages, and on top of that it's encrypted into a code." I explained.

Seto only encrypted his schematics if they were super important and always made the keys something personal to him. That basically meant as the person who knew him best in the world if I couldn't crack it, then no one could.

It was all on me.

"I was trying to figure out the cipher all night... but I haven't yet."

Even if I figured out the encryption key there was no guarantee I'd be able to understand what he'd written. I only spoke five of the same languages he did...

"'Written in code', like a spy?" Joey added from the side. Ha. "Why would he do that?"

"Are you kidding me?" I asked. Joey wasn't that stupid. "It's a defense against corporate espionage. KaibaCorp has way too many competitors and all of them would love to get their hands on Seto's designs..."

I trailed off. That was all true, but I left out the bit I wasn't sure I'd be able to say out loud.

"And?" Joey pursued, inspecting a desk ornament and not really paying attention to his own question. That made it easier to answer.

"And...Yeah, okay; there's no point stealing something you can't read and no one reads anything my brother doesn't want... but more specifically I'm pretty sure Seto encrypted this to keep me out of it."

He'd done it to keep me away.

I didn't want to think that way but after trying all his normal encryption keys I was feeling sure.

"Well sure-" Joey replied absentmindedly as he fiddled with the ornament. "If I went n' died I sure wouldn't want Serenity coming afta' me."

There was a crinkling of paper as Yugi lowered the blueprint back onto the desk and I could feel his eyes on me, watching for my reaction.

I scowled at Joey and then sighed. When he'd first said that at the museum he'd thrown me for a loop but I'd thought about it since. In fact I couldn't stop thinking about it. Yeah, he was right. The description was technically accurate.

"I just want my brother to be alright." I broke eye contact and stared at my feet, feeling my eyes itch. If I was going to cry I didn't want them to see it. Not again.

"Ah crap. Sorry Mokuba." Joey huffed and butted the heel of his hand against his head. "I didn't mean it like that. 'm sure Moneybags is fine." He tacked a mountain of false enthusiasm on the top like it was reassuring.

I frowned. "If he was fine he'd be back here by now."

Sometimes it felt like they went on forever but no matter how high tier the duelists, a game of Duel Monsters took a few hours - max. Even if my brother and the Pharaoh had done something really unbelievable like played a best two out of three, Seto should have been back by now with time to spare.

A fear that I'd been quietly playing whack-a-mole with all night popped up again.

"What if he never even made it there?"

Then that would mean he'd never been coming back. Lost forever somewhere between dimensions.

"Hey, stop it right now!" Yugi chided, raising his voice like a little shouting was supposed to impress me. No way. Not with my family history.

"You can't think like that." He continued firmly. I stared at him with no idea how to react. It felt weird being told off - especially by Yugi.

"Why don't we just ask Atem if he's seen Kaiba?" Joey proposed, so nonchalantly it was fucking painful. I felt like my eyes were going to burst out of my skull as I stared at him googley-eyed.

"You can do that?" They could do that? That was an option?! "Why the hell didn't you say that sooner!" I demanded.

"Woah!" Joey shouted, accidentally snapping off the top if the ornament and waving his hands in front of him like I'd just threatened to shoot him.

"Well I dunno if we can-" he hastily backtracked like a cowardly damn mutt "-but ehhh, when I was gunna' loose my memories in Diva's weird world Atem just showed up all of a sudden and helped me out - just like he did for Yug' at the end of their duel." Joey nodded in Yugi's direction, probably searching for back-up.

Yugi frowned like he was really troubled.

I in the meantime was pissed.

"So Atem took the time to appear to you two but couldn't fit my brother into his schedule? Was he really so busy being dead he couldn't move something around?" I snapped at the loser dog.

"Hey! Don't get mad at me!" He defended.

"Each time-" Yugi began, hesitantly, "-We were in real trouble. Life or death. That's probably it."

I groaned. Of course it was something like that. Why wouldn't it be. But even that logic didn't hold up.

"Diva straight up erased my brother in that same duel and the Pharaoh didn't show up for him even then." I challenged.

"I'm sorry Mokuba-" Yugi muttered and he really did sound sorry. He had to look away from me before he could puke the words out. "I really don't know how it works, or why it happened at all."

"Whatever." I jerked my head away from them both and didn't even bother trying not to sound bitter. Once again I felt... beaten. Defeated. If Seto was here he'd never give up a fight, but I wasn't my brother...

He had opened a door to the afterlife and I couldn't even manage to make a window.

"It probably also takes a lot of magical energy to appear in our world like that, even temporarily -" Yugi continued to muse in the background while holding his chin. "-or else deceased people would cross back and forth a lot." He was pretty much just talking to himself at this point. "Atem did it, but he couldn't even speak and his magic was really powerful." He hummed.

"Yep!" Joey added not so helpfully, shoving his elbows in the air and knitting his fingers behind his head as he casually stepped away from the broken ornament. "Rest'a us would probably need a Millennium Item or some crazy magic thing ta make it werk."

Seto had used Diva's Cube...

"That's it!" I shouted. Why hadn't I thought of it before? "We can use the Quantum Cube!"

If changing strategy to go wring some answers out of Atem would get me closer to my brother then I'd do it! And unlike Seto, we actually knew for sure exactly where the Pharaoh was even if it was in another dimension.

"Ehhhh. You sure that's a good idea?" Joey yipped, raising an eyebrow.

"Nope." I glanced back at Yugi. He was eying me speculatively. He looked a lot like Atem when he did that. I smirked at him. "But I still wanna give it a try.

He watched me for a really long moment as his eyes went all over my face.

"If you'll help?" I chanced.

Even juiced up with the Cube it wasn't like the Pharaoh was going to appear to me. If anyone was going to reach him, it would be Yugi. This wasn't going to work without him.

He looked really hesitant for a split second, then covered over it with an intense determination that looked really weird on his features.

"Of course I will." He confirmed. Then his expression turned so damn solemn. "You were right, back at the museum. I - I should have tried harder to reach out to your brother after Atem left..."

"Yug'-" Joey murmured, sounding consolatory.

"...Kaiba was always more interested in Atem than me and I guess..."

He kept trailing off and I stayed dead silent. I wanted to hear this.

"...I look so much like him; I didn't want to show up and remind Kaiba of someone he'd lost."

Oh.

I didn't know what to say to that.

Just with those words it felt like this stone of resentment I hadn't really even acknowledged carrying around at the bottom of my gut softened up a bit. I thought Yugi had just ditched my brother and forgotten about him but it turns out he was trying to spare his feelings.

"Thanks..." I really meant it. "For thinking about him." 'Like he was a person, with actual feelings' was the bit I didn't say.

"Of course." Yugi's sad face put on a sunny smile and he gave me a brisk nod. "I meant what I said. You're my friend, and so is Kaiba and I'll do whatever it takes to help my friends."

It felt a little late in the day to be setting out to try and prove that to us but I liked his determination. It made me feel like this could really work.

"Let's go get the Cube then." I made for the door, and had to turn back around to reply to Joey's yelp of "It's here?"

"Sure is." I winked at him and walked out into the hallway. They didn't move from the room for a moment, then jogged out to catch up to me as I kept going down the corridor.

"In the mansion?" Joey continued.

"Yep." Ha, cute. He was probably imagining a pathetic little lock box hidden behind a painting or something like in the movies.

I tossed a grin over my shoulder at them and stepped into the library.

"It's secure in our underground vault." 'bunker' was a more accurate description but whatever. "You guys do remember this used to be the residence of a globally renowned arms dealer, right?"

And a fairly crazy one at that. Gozaburo had been determined not to give anyone the satisfaction of killing him off - you could nuke the mansion and all the underground areas would still be fine.

"Why not keep it at KaibaCorp?" Yugi frowned, bumping into me as I stopped in front of one of the bookcases. I peeled a book off the shelf by its spine and pressed my thumb against the fingerprint scanner behind it. When Gozaburo was alive all the mansion's hidden switches where crammed behind books on military history and philosophy. Seto had thrown them all out and replaced them with ironically titled books about dragons by some obscure author I'd never heard of. Probably so the passageways would be easier for me to find as a little kid.

I shrugged, tossing 'The Dragon's Treasure' onto the floor as I did so. Who said Seto had no sense of humor. "It's safer this way." I answered.

KaibaCorp wasn't immune to hostile takeover or outright invasion - as waaay too many people seemed determined to prove. If anyone found out my brother was currently out of the picture the company would be a pretty appealing target so better to play it safe and keep the Cube here now that Seto didn't need it up on the space station anymore. If the mansion vault was good enough for his Blue-Eyes White Dragon cards then it was good enough for anything.

With a beep the scanner accepted my print and the bookshelf retracted into the wall on a previously invisible metal track.

"Coooool." Joey cooed, stepping into the hidden elevator and pressing his face against the walls for some reason without hesitation - like this was all another fun adventure.

I followed him in with Yugi trailing me close behind and pressed the descent button.

For the first time since Seto left I felt actually hopeful.

I was going to make this work.

**Atem**

The magic of Polymerization eclipsed Kaiba in a halo of light, cloaking his body in a blinding veil that I was forced to shield my eyes from.

Kaiba had been right, of course, and also simultaneously wrong - as was his habit.

It was his own words from before that granted me understanding of this move. While there were indeed no dragons on the field at a glance, a reliance on sight was hiding the presence of the monsters Kaiba's Duel Disk had failed to render earlier. Of the two of them only one was a dragon type and thusly a target for the Dragon Capture Jar.

Mark of the Rose had set the fusion into motion and I stepped backwards, imagining whatever the end result of a fusion between Blue-Eyes and her master to be, it would no doubt be both cantankerous and deadly.

My assumption wasn't far from the truth.

Kaiba's humanoid silhouette was remade in a blaze of talons and wings. A long tail grew in and thrashed behind the rapidly growing body of a creature now more dragon than man. It roared angrily as the spell completed its work and receded, dimming against the monster's pearlescent scales until it was gone.

Where Kaiba once stood, now only this new creature remained.

The dragon was a strange hybrid. While undoubtedly a Blue-Eyes for lack of anything closer to equate it to, its body was much slimmer than those of the true Blue-Eyes that slumbered in Kaiba's deck. It was broader and squarer across the withers and its sleek body tapered inward towards its flanks. Its arms were longer, less vestigial and more practical. The left hung loosely in comparison to the right and it coiled that arm closer to its underbelly protectively just as Kaiba had held it against his body.

"Kaiba?" I questioned, unsure if I was to be dealing with man or beast, or some strange mixture therein.

He snapped in my direction - his crushing jaws gnashing at me in warning; one that I chose to observe. Since fulfilling my destiny and arriving in this afterlife I could now remember my upbringing. I could recall that a I had spent a childhood among the likes of the Palace horses, dogs and cats and recognized an animal's distress easily. The dragon reflected a beast's panic - his chest rapidly inhaling and exhaling like an overworked bellows while his nostrils flared and constricted at a speed that spoke only of confusion and fright.

Perhaps Kaiba's mind was not present in this new form.

The dragon's neck warily snaked around the forest, peering through the trees and then screamed a deafening roar into the air. The ear-splitting sound sent the birds fleeing from the treetops in a noisy cacophony of frantic wing beats and flashing feathers. The songbirds disappeared into the sky and by a trick of the sunlight gleaming over their plumage for a moment I believed myself to have even spotted a single white dove escaping with them.

The Blue-Eyes stole the moment back to him with a second mad roar, more desperate then the last.

"Be calm." I told the dragon, taking a sure but slow step toward him. He hissed in warning as his eyes darted around. "All is well." I tried to reassure him.

He was apparently less than convinced by me. He reared back a little to assess me with his tail whipping behind him. For a mere moment everything was absolutely still.

And then the dragon decided that moment was over.

I jumped away from him, narrowly avoiding being swiped by his tail as he madly slashed at the trees that surrounded us on all sides and smashed his head and tail against anything that his arms couldn't reach in a dire frenzy. He raised its head up again and again, bellowing his angry cry into the wind as though calling for something.

Calling for another was so contrary to Kaiba's personality. I couldn't imagine who he thought would answer but if Sphinx Teleia was by some miracle oblivious to our whereabouts she would not continue to be for long.

"Stop. Be quiet now" I firmly ordered the dragon as I would have done my young stallion, unsurprised to be willfully ignored just as I likely would have been were Kaiba still a human.

As though to deliberately defy me he threw his head back and loosed a final thunderous chorus and then fell silent to stare at the sky beyond the tree line of the newly made forest clearing. The breeze pulled leaves along on it, but not the reply he had been hoping to hear.

I hoped that rebellion against my command was a sign of Kaiba's consciousness lurking somewhere inside the dragon's mind. The alternative - that Kaiba's stubbornly contrarian nature had been absorbed into the heart of his cards and his dragons along with it would prove difficult to contend with.

Against the heavy weight situation I slightly smirked.

Being 'difficult to contend with' was Kaiba's defining feature. Attractive and frustrating all at once. It was almost unthinkable to wish him to be any other way. Regardless if Kaiba could hear me or not, I refused to treat this new form any less than I had treated the old one. After all, had Kaiba not always been a dragon at heart?

I chuckled and approached the white monster. Confidence heated my expression as it always did - as though this were just another march to a dueling platform. The dead leaves of the forest floor crunched beneath my sandals as I took each step toward him to close the distance. His draconic eyes were back on me in a heartbeat.

The Blue-Eyes coiled his neck backwards and snarled at me as fiercely as he could as I entered what I had observed to be his striking distance. He opened his maw as widely as possible to bare his long and deadly fangs at me. Instead of attacking outright it was a warning to stay back, to stay away, and it bolstered me. Intelligence gleamed brightly in his eyes beneath the fear and anxiety. Too brightly to be the gaze of a mere monster, no matter how magnificent Kaiba's dragons might be.

I needed to confirm it.

His eyes narrowed in challenge as he watched me take a second step into his personal space and a third and I was thankful Mark of the Rose felt no need to issue another command to complicate matters as I did so. The monster's expression was familiar, even painted over a dragon's features.

Kaiba was still present.

He growled viciously as I stood close enough to reach out to him, experimentally flexing his claws as though preparing to rend me. I had no doubts.

"You suspect who I am, or you would have attacked by now." I noted.

Calling Kaiba out was as pleasing to me as it was infuriating to him. Even if he couldn't understand my words or see me clearly, there would be no escaping the familiar tone. I pressed the palm of my hand to his new form's muzzle and rubbed my thumb across the pale scales. His ferocious growl faded, becoming softer and irritated instead of hostile.

After a deep inhalation the Blue-Eyes blinked, slowly.

His reptilian eyelids closed not vertically like a humans but horizontally like a lizards and his pupils seemed to switch as this happened - the pure blue membrane of Blue-Eye's normal eyes receding into his eye sockets to leave behind only a pair of rounded blue irises, identical to Kaiba's own with the exception of a snake-like vertical pupil.

His growl finally softened into silence as the human-like eyes warily roved over the scenery again as if seeing it for the first time.

"Kaiba." I greeted - this time sure of exactly who and what I was addressing. It seemed he had managed to regain his wits.

He stared at me and opened his mouth to reply with some no doubt dead-pan rejoinder.

"Garoooh."

The draconic bark that came out of his mouth instead of normal words took us both by surprise and Kaiba sneered at self-made sound, as well as his new snout could. He huffed in irritation, seemingly taking this new development in his stride as he instead inclined his head a fraction in silent affirmation. It wasn't a large gesture, but it was enough to set me at ease.

"Polymerization fused you together with the Blue-Eyes that was banished earlier." I explained.

'You think?' or something to that effect was the clear message given in his steady answering glower.

"How do you feel?" I chanced.

Merging in part with Duel Monsters or taking up their weapons or physical feats was hardly a new experience to Yugi, myself and our friends but Kaiba had never been present for such misadventures. To him this was all new and no doubt very strange.

I lost his attention as he craned his neck around to test his new extremities, beating his tail against the floor and flexing his wings. The former he regarded with the look of someone testing the durability of a new weapon while the later he examined closely with a sort of shy reverence I had never seen Kaiba apply to anything other than perhaps Mokuba. He fluttered the leathery limbs cautiously, watching them move very carefully.

He made a rather handsome dragon, which seemed fitting as he also made a rather handsome human.

I paused in that thought.

The comparison was apt but the onset of it waylaid me. Did I consider Kaiba to be 'handsome'? It certainly wasn't a characteristic I recalled noticing while I was in Yugi's body. Before I had time to turn it over in my mind a noise from behind my back drew my notice. The sharp whistling like air being drawn into something made me turn and our twin oversight startled me.

"Oh no."

In the clamor of Kaiba's transformation both of us had forgotten the Dragon Capture Jar that lay behind us.

Kaiba's head reared up at my words as the Jar began to rattle and quake, sucking spare leaves and soil into its maw as the intensity of its vacuum continued to grow.

I turned back to Kaiba, shouting to be heard over the growing whistle of the Jar.

"Fly away."

It whipped up a wind around us as it continued to suck in everything it could in an attempt to consume its one target. Kaiba growled with effort as he dug his claws into the ground, the talons of his right arm leaving behind deep trenches in the forest floor as his draconic body was slowly pulled toward the Jar as though it were a wind-made whirlpool. He heard me and glanced up at the sky, eagerly extending his wings outward. Then he hesitated. His wings lowered a fraction and the Dragon Capture Jar needed no more time to do its work.

Kaiba's front and back claws snatched into the earth as deeply as they could, but ultimately the magic of the Jar proved undeniable against his new dragon form. With an angry snarl his body was lifted by the Jar's will and catapulted towards it, his white hide magically compressing and vanishing into the Jar's much smaller opening in a flurry of scales and lumps of loosened earth.

The forest clearing settled and grew silent and still in the aftermath of the Jar's capture.

Sprinting back to the jar robbed the breath from my chest far more easily than it should of. I ignored that as I shouted Kaiba's name into the Jar's opening. My words echoed around it's magic depths back into my ears but there was no reply.

"What?" I snatched at my wrist as the brand pained my hand anew. It burned and smarted as Mark of the Rose came alive once more. I held my wrist as it pulsed.

We had been found.

"Very good, little Pharaoh..." purred a feminine voice from the depths of the forest at my back. I spun on my heel, already knowing the source. Isis's noble voice was turned vulgar by Teleia's tone.

"Teleia." I glanced around the decimated tree-line, my eyes squinting into the darkened space between the trees to find the Sphinx.

"Turning your companion into a beast so you could snare him like one - deliciously witty." Teleia continued to compliment.

She lounged in the priestess's stolen body against a shadowy tree trunk in a picture of nonchalance. Her mouth turned upwards into a malicious grin as my eyes met her own.

"Now pick him up, and bring him to me." She ordered, her words growing dark and feral.

I glanced at the Dragon Capture Jar. The object was easily larger than I was. Fortunately this was a good grounds to deny her wish on.

"I can't lift it." I parried, frowning.

"Oh my, oh my. What a conundrum -" Teleia cooed back, the familiar comfort of hearing the voice of my trusted priestess shaken by its theft by this cruel intruder. "Oh, I know-" she added with sinister enthusiasm.

Mark of the Rose flared its grim aura once more and this time reached deeper into me that it had ever dared pry before. With a malevolence that had been previously absent it slithered its influence somewhere private and sacred - somewhere that should not be tampered with and command my hands to draw a card from my deck.

I had expected her to summon in a monster to do the lifting for me, yet she had something more insidious in mind.

My temples exploded in pain as the Mark reached out, bidding my own hands putting the card Soul Rope into play. My skull seared with pain as I fought to keep her from coaxing my spellcraft outward but my efforts went unrewarded. As a mere trading card Soul Rope was a useful addition to any deck, but here in my afterlife I would never have cast such a spell willingly. Soul magic was the manipulation of spiritual energy, the very well of magical power within the body. To do so was a violation - a skill worthy of the powers of a Millennium Item and excruciating when performed by a lesser magic! With the raising of my hand and a fire raging in my head the golden light of my soul's energy formed the rope, a golden chain of raw magic exploding outward from my chest toward the Dragon Capture Jar to tether its occupant to me.

The Jar levitated from the earth as the binding formed and floated obediently at my side as Teleia compelled me on an unknown path north through the forest.

"You will-" fury and pain lanced through me as I struggled against her "regret this."

The Sphinx giggled unpleasantly and turned her back on me to disappear through the trees, her Mark bidding me to follow at her back like a servant would.

I gritted my teeth. Teleia! How dare she turn my own deck against my will! She would pay for it and for taking Isis's body. I would be free of her and exact my justice!

The simplicity of that decision filled me with a heady feeling. Retribution was not something I recalled enjoying while I was alive, but as I had emerged from the Puzzle in Yugi's body -indistinct from his own consciousness or desires- inflicting vengeance against his transgressors had been a singular light guiding me down a very long and dark hallway. I had reveled in it. Each penalty game had fed me a taste of a power I had long forgotten. It had felt natural to me to seek justice on Yugi's behalf and it would seem the echo of that elation now lived within me, with or without my continuing consent.

Through the haze of my own building anger I had almost missed her earlier comment.

She had complemented me on the play that had fused Kaiba with his dragon to make him venerable to imprisonment - yet I hadn't planned that move. If she hadn't either then it would seem there was another player in this game. The Duel Disk had revealed nothing to suggest a third party, yet the idea had merit. It paired with an observation I had made during our sword fight...

Though clearly not a master Kaiba handled the sword with a middling proficiency that suggested some former training, but it was outdated. Lessons from when he was younger, and clearly shorter. His stance was overly wide, as were his sweeps; the arcs overly large and requiring a great amount of his stamina. He blocked and parried the damaging blows to his core with efficiency, more relying upon his body's deceptive brute strength to repel them than actual skill, but he left opportunity to attack at his arms and legs. Given so many openings I could have done much more damage to him - perhaps even killed him - if I had been so compelled to.

"Do not dawdle, little Pharaoh." Teleia cooed, tossing the words back at me over my shoulder. My foot caught on a half buried tree root as the Mark spurred me on quicker to meet her demand.

"Agh." I grunted quietly as my other foot stubbed a toe against a fallen branch. It was impossible to concentrate through the pain. My head was splitting under the Mark's overbearing misuse of my powers from the raw effort it took to continue levitating the jar without the governing influence of the Millennium Puzzle to order and channel my magic through. The inert Puzzle bumped against my torso helplessly as I continued to stumble through the forest at Mark of the Rose's instruction.

"Hurry now. We are almost there." Teleia hummed, my eyes squinting through my agony to catch a glimpse of a stream of light penetrating the tree leaves to cut through the woodland shade. The glow steadily grew up ahead at what must be the forest's edge. It embraced us as we crossed toward the threshold of trees.

Kaiba's unbidden Japanese forest began to thin out and gradually cease.

The emerald green leafy plumes of Bird of Roses met my sight as we emerged upon the precipice of some sort of canyon, the shape of the enormous vulture looming large and obvious in the sparse canopy of the final tree. Teleia paid it no mind. The plant-typed monster squawked like a buzzard as its mistress sauntered by and shuffled its deadly talons along the branch it perched on to attempt to peck at me as I passed it. The Mark didn't permit me to duck and its drill-like beak struck me squarely in the back of the head.

My migraine flashed in white hot pain and only after squeezing my eyes tightly shut and holding them so for a few seconds did the pain pass and allow me to continue observing my new surroundings.

The grass crawled a few feet onward to venture across the landscape of its own accord before abruptly ending as it met the more familiar white-gold sand of my afterlife. The arid terrain was comforting to see once more but extended only a few steps and then was replaced by the harsh red rocks of a jagged chasm, yawning before us in all directions.

I knew this place.

**Yugi**

The ride down into the Kaiba vault wasn't long. Joey made me grin as he yawned and stretched, grazing his knuckles against the elevator ceiling. He was so casual about all of this. It was impossible not to feel at ease. Not a second later Mokuba covered his mouth with his hand, trying to hide a yawn of his own, but unlike Joey I think he was actually beat. The three of us together like this reminded me of the first time the three of us had set out to save Kaiba in his virtual world. I just hoped we could pull it off again without Atem.

Of course we could. Kaiba was missing and Mokuba was counting on me. The brothers were my friends and I'd make it work, for both their sakes.

Mokuba yawned again beside me. He looked tired and his eyes were a bit red - not wet, just red. It looked like he hadn't been sleeping well. It was unlike Mokuba to be this anxious. His faith in his brother was unshakable; I guess he usually had that as a comfort when Kaiba got himself into trouble. It didn't look like it was working for him anymore.

I glanced back to him as he rubbed his eyes and straightened up his neck tie. His expressions were starting to look more like his brother's when he was mad and his voice kept breaking a little bit but he was ignoring it. He was growing up really fast. Always having to watch the situations Kaiba got himself into would probably do that to anyone.

This time was different though.

Kaiba hadn't been kidnapped or blackmailed; if what Mokuba and Pegasus had said at the museum was true then this time his brother had left willingly. Maybe that was what had him so upset?

"You're really worried about Kaiba" I noted as the elevator came to a stop. The lights in the room beyond came on automatically, the timing between each bulb lighting up a little staggered so they seemed to lead your eyes deeper into the back of the vault.

"Of course I am, he's my big brother!" Mokuba answered quickly and a little curtly. His expensive-looking shoes pattered across the metal floor as he led us into the vault.

"More than usual." Joey added nonchalantly, catching onto my meaning. I nodded. I was hoping Mokuba might talk to us about it, it looked like he was holding a lot in. Maybe it was a family thing?

With a frown Mokuba turned away and pretended to ignore the question. He stopped right in front of a thick steel door and busied himself with a few different security panels. The metal doors to the deepest part of the vault opened with a muffled hiss. A little mist rushed through the crack as they parted and the temperature dropped like I'd just opened up a refrigerator on a summer day.

"Woah!" Joey's mouth hung open as a space the size of an art gallery opened up in front of us with thousands of cards kept in hundreds of trays behind thick glass walls. It was a vaguely pyramid shaped room, but where all four of the sides should have met together to form a point like the tip of the Millennium Puzzle it instead just kept going up in a long vertical shaft that seemed to defy conventional design rules. A machine had been built into each large rectangular display case and gave off a faint hum like an air conditioner that you could only just hear through the glass, but stranger still was how the display cases lined the walls from the bottom to the very top, far up into the distance towards the ceiling. Even Kaiba would only be able to reach maybe the first three rows of cards before they got too high up on the wall for him to look into.

"Yeah, you said it." I agreed, almost wordless. This was... well I guess this was what having a limitless amount of money to fund your favorite hobby looked like. Something was off about this place though. It didn't feel right.

Mokuba rolled his eyes. I guess stuff like this was everyday for him.

"There's got to be one of every single card in here!" Joey exclaimed, sprinting around the displays divided up by card type, monster species and level.

"Hehe." I laughed awkwardly at his enthusiasm as he splatted his hands and leaned his face against one of the glass panes to peer inside of it. Mokuba grimaced at the smear of fingerprints he left behind. I always knew that Kaiba had a big store of cards somewhere given how frequently he turned up with briefcases full of them, but seeing it in front of me was a different thing completely.

"Three, actually." Mokuba replied tonelessly. What was going through his head right now? I wonder if he got the same feeling down here that I did? Being in this room was uncomfortable. Upsetting. I didn't like it and I couldn't place why.

It was excessive, maybe that was why? I rethought that quickly. To a professional duelist having a big pool of cards to choose from was a normal investment and Duel Monsters had been Kaiba's game – a game he'd been the champion of - before Atem and I had changed that.

That was it.

I'd figured it out! I knew what it was!

Kaiba had collected all these cards, but now he didn't even use a physical deck to duel. All of the cards locked up down here were destined never to be put into play; to just remain part of Kaiba's stash. He was like a dragon hording treasure.

"Each card tray is hermetically sealed in a temperature-controlled environment." Mokuba remarked casually, walking up a small flight of stairs, across a raised up plateau over to a central console that probably controlled the room. "Open them up a thousand years into the future and they'll all still be as good as new."

"Why? Kaiba plannin' on freezin' 'is brain or somethin'?" Joey smirked, perusing through some of the cards in one of the 'dragon' monster trays.

Why was a good question. Despite how diligently he preserved them Kaiba would never use ninety nine percent of these cards in a deck of his own so he must be keeping them just for posterity.

"Aw, man. He's got Red-Eyes and everythin'" Joey moaned in the background.

It was like Kaiba was keeping an archive of cards; entombing them all down here in perfect condition... like an ancient Egyptian priest might have done with the stone tablets of his time. Was doing this was just in Kaiba's nature? Something deep down and left over from being a reincarnation, just like I was?

"Dammmmn! Yug' come see!" Joey called out from across the room. My footsteps echoed right around the room as I walked over to him.

"Look how creepy this is!" Joey laughed, apparently not picking up on the heavy atmosphere or grave-like feeling of this room at all.

It was an epitaph.

Well, not really. But it sure looked like one. Joey pointed and snickered as Mokuba followed me over to see what he was laughing at.

"Could Kaiba be any more obsessed?" He taunted. Mokuba scowled at him, popping up beside us without making a sound.

In an alcove to the side of the main vault stood a massive sculpture of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon and in the safety of its arching wings stood three isolated cases. Kaiba's Blue-Eyes cards. Their cases looked like more modern versions of the ones that lined the walls of the main vault. They were sleeker and covered in complex holographic read outs.

"My big brother made these cases himself." Mokuba remarked, giving Joey a chilly look.

"That kinda proves my point." Joey snickered, not at all phased by the subtle reprimand.

A set of numbers flashed across the glass of each one and it took me a moment to realize what the numbers actually were. Temperatures. All three cases had been set to a slightly different temperature within a couple of decimal places.

"Why are the storage temperatures all different?" I wondered out loud.

"They vary depending on each card's cumulative time spent in my brother's hand. Those chamber are all uniquely customized for each card – to keep them pristine after their years of use." Mokuba answered promptly. "Seto says just holding a card causes the transfer of body heat, oils from your skin and stuff like that, and it damages them." He added, peering into the cases the make sure the numbers were correct and adjusting one slightly using a keypad on the pillar's side.

Joey frowned "Uhhh, wouldn't Kaiba have t'know which of the three cards was which to do that?"

"Yep." Mokuba agreed.

"How? They all look the same." Joey leaned over the three identical Blue-Eyes White Dragon cards and jutted out his chin in thought. I understood his confusion. All three of them were in mint condition and there wasn't any foxing or wear and tear to tell them apart. Considering all the duels in crazy places Kaiba had put them through they looked immaculate.

Mokuba peered over Joey's shoulder. He pointed to the one on the far left. "That one there, I think that's the first one Seto ever got. There's a little stain in the top right-hand corner. Two and Three look the same to me though." His eyes were warm as he looked over the three cards held in stasis, but his words were cool and impersonal; like he was trying to hide how much he liked them.

"A stain?"

"I don't see it."

Joey and I spoke at the same time and Mokuba only shrugged. "Well whatever. I don't think he cares too much about the rest of these, but only the best for Blue-Eyes."

It was strange, to see the cards that Kaiba clearly adored sealed away down here along with all of the rest of his collection. I could almost hear them, the Blue-Eyes and the Heart of Kaiba's Cards with them all singing together sorrowfully in this vault.

I could feel myself frowning at the dragons. "But don't you think that's sad?" Mokuba raised and eyebrow and tilted his head to one side. "That they're down here while he's using holographic versions instead?" I clarified.

Mokuba looked at me like I'd gone crazy. "These cards mean everything to my brother. Why risk taking them out and about if a hologram will do the trick?" He asked. The idea seemed to confuse him. Joey didn't reply, but he was looking at me as though he agreed.

I didn't know if the Heart of the Cards exists in holograms. How did I explain it to someone who wasn't a duelist? I tried to think of an example that might make more sense to Mokuba.

"Isn't enjoying something while it lasts and knowing it'll end better than locking it safely away and never looking at it again?" I chanced.

"Depends who you ask." Mokuba replied smoothly. His tone carried a bit of a warning.

"But I bet they'd rather be with your brother no matter where he is than in here." I gently pressed.

Mokuba seemed hesitant to reply, staring down at his feet before squaring his shoulders. He looked back up skeptically. "... You know they're just cards right?" he taunted without much conviction, trying to brush me off.

Even if you forgot about all the ancient Egyptian connections, Blue-Eyes was more than just a card to the Kaibas. It was an icon. It was the statue outside of their main headquarters, the shape of Kaiba's personal plane and the graphic on the company construction signs. At this point it was more synonymous with the Kaiba brothers than with Duel Monsters itself.

"I don't think that's true." I smiled at Mokuba. "And I don't think you think that's true either."

He watched me closely, his uncertain expression becoming more upset with every second and then glanced at the three cards solemnly.

"You really think they can tell that they're locked up down here?" He asked softly.

"I do." I nodded back.

Mokuba seemed to debate something for a moment and then his brow creased as though he'd come to a decision. There was a scattering of button presses on a control console and a click as he deactivated the security locks. With a rush of cold air he gathered up each of the three cards, shuffled them into a row and stowed them in the inside of his suit jacket.

"Uhhh, you allowed t'do that?" Joey questioned skeptically.

Mokuba scoffed.

"How about this. We'll give Seto three seconds to come back from the afterlife and tell me to put them back and if he doesn't then I guess it's fine." He bargained. I glanced at Joey and he grinned back at me as Mokuba counted down three seconds on his fingers. "-Yeah, we're good." He announced as he reached zero.

"Man, you're gunna be a fun teenager." Joey teased, nudging Mokuba with his elbow a few times.

Mokuba grinned back for the first time since we'd come down here, a little tiredly but honestly. "I'm thirteen in four months. I basically already am a teenager." He protested, pretending to be offended for comedic effect. His voice cracked a little as he said that which made Joey laugh.

"Now stop drooling over my brother's cards and get over here." Mokuba continued in a much friendlier tone than he'd been using since we'd first shown up at the mansion, leading us away from the sealed dragons. Apparently the Cube had a private vault all of its own off to the side in a matching alcove.

Mokuba pulled out its tray and stood to the side, waiting expectantly for me to pick it up.

For a moment I wondered if this was a bad idea – if I'd given Mokuba false hope. I almost wished Atem was still here to fill me with his confidence. It wasn't the first time I'd caught myself thinking that way but it was the last. I had the memory of his friendship to treasure forever, and that wasn't all. I was his reincarnation and deep down I trusted his strength was there inside of me, just like a priest's need to archive the stone tablets was somewhere inside of Kaiba.

My hands were steady as I took the Cube from Mokuba and I turned it around in my hands a few times.

"So what ya gonna do?" Joe questioned.

"I don't know." I answered truthfully. "But we'll figure it out. Together." I was certain of that.

"You know it, Yug'."

"How did you used to make the Puzzle work?" Mokuba asked. His eyes were narrowed as he stared very intently at the Cube in deep thought, like he could glare it into bringing Kaiba back.

I contemplated the question carefully.

"The Puzzle used to active on it's own. I don't think I ever really did anything." It was magic, so who knew. I'd been caught up in it all as a passenger rather than an actual participant when I'd first pieced the Puzzle together and despite being sealed inside of it Atem hadn't remembered enough about the Puzzle to tell me how it worked, nevermind the rest of the Items.

"Atem probably had yer covered from 'is side."

"I guess so." Pegasus, Ishizu, Marik – any one of them would probably know more about getting a Millennium Item to work than I did.

"So what do we know for sure about any of this?" Mokuba pondered.

"One-" he held up a finger to illustrate. "-It's ancient ghost magic so basically anything could happen at any time for any reason." That was a bit of a heavy handed way to describe it, but he wasn't wrong so I nodded along. "Two – you and the Pharaoh are still connected somehow – even though you need a booster and can't activate the link." he listed, glancing at me unimpressed. "And three it only works if the other person is in the trouble?"

"Yeah." I answered a little awkwardly and looked down at the Item. I guess at the end of the day that wasn't much to work with and all of this was making my head begin to hurt. I touched my forehead, suddenly feeling hot, as though I was going to pass out.

"Sup' Yug'?" Joey asked abruptly, pulling my attention back to him. Had I spaced out? Mokuba was suddenly staring at me wide-eyed, like I'd grown another nose.

"Yer uhh, head is glowin' a bit-" Joey mentioned, struggling to sound casual about it but succeeding.

Suddenly I felt weak and my legs turned to jelly. A feeling like light behind my retinas came on so quickly I didn't have time to react. It swallowed my eyes and made my ears ring.

I knew this feeling.

* * *

**AN**: A few reviews have started to come in for this fic and I just wanted to say thank you so much for them. This story doesn't get very many so every one is precious!


	16. Chapter 16

**Teleia**

There was but one simple little rule I had vowed to live by since abandoning my former life for a place at the Master's side: what's mine, is mine, and I would keep it that way.

Ano thought he could fondle my prey as soon as my back was turned. Pah! He should be only so lucky! I share with no one!

Bird of Roses spirited me into the air atop its back and for dreadfully dull night we had flown in circle upon dreary circle to surveilled the desert for another chance at our dashing young foes. The lack of result had begun to grow dismally tedious and then, sweetly, my Mark of the Rose had found itself lovely body to bind upon. After that finding my quarry had become child's play. The Mark guided me to the forest and then the screams of a wild beast had called me further. What nerve Ano had to be already there and playing with my toys without my permission!

I snatched control of the Mark from him as soon as I was close enough. Where he had flown off to I did not know, nor did I care.

The Pharaoh was before me now, already damp and slicked with sweat that began to dry the moment we stepped out of the gloom of that fetid wood. The Egyptian sun licked the beautiful beads of sweat from his brow and neck and I was jealous of it for doing so. I wanted to taste him for myself.

"My Mark is a wondrous spell, is it not?" Elegant and efficient, just as I was. It looked so good on him; staining him as an object of my possession. His efforts to refuse it only made it meld into him more swiftly; more completely.

He panted slightly like an exhausted bedfellow as I commanded his body to deposit the jar of dragon sealing in front of him, a short distance from the cliff edge. "It mixes it's own magic with that of its host, like a lovely venom." I continued, wanting to see the moment that true understanding of his current predicament leeched into his face with beautiful terror, as it had so many before him.

I hooked my finger beneath his chin to tilt it towards me and stroked the sharp curve for but a moment to wet my appetite before moving away. "Do you feel it pulsing inside of you?" I wondered aloud, hoping for a reaction to savor from the Pharaoh just as amusingly prudish as his companion's had been. I had been told he was born the most powerful mages alive. How marvelous that this little work of witchcraft should be his undoing.

I was denied his expression of horror. In fact he did not appear to be listening to me in the slightest. How quaint. How very quaint! It was time to alter my approach.

His eyes had been narrowed on me as we emerged from the forest. Now they were wide open in shock as he recognized our location. It may not have been the realization of powerlessness that I hungered to see, but it was a fetching expression nevertheless. I denied myself the indulgence of reminiscing as I glanced into the canyon below. I had my precious Master's work to do after all.

"I knew that you would like it. I picked this place just for you." I told the Pharaoh. How wonderfully disarmed he looked by it all.

"This place..." he began, then fell silent. He looked breathtakingly unhappy. Good.

"Yes?" I taunted, thirsting for him to speak more on the subject. He did not. Instead he continued to pant like an overworked hound before me - arousing, but disappointing. How very disappointing indeed.

His ruby red eyes escaped the vista to land upon me instead. He forcefully pinned me beneath them as my instructions to the Mark ended and his body became his own again in the interim.

"What a ferocious expression." I noted, pleasure as his sour look grew hard and stiff, pricking at the corners of my mouth.

"Release me, Teleia" He demanded, tone tight with a barely sheathed anger. Was it this place? I hoped so. Or perhaps it was something else? I did not recall the young Pharaoh to be easily riled.

He gave himself away - his eyes flickered to the Jar as quickly as a snakes tongue licks the air, but not quick enough to escape my very keen eyes. Ah.

I tapped my bottom lip, feigning consideration. "No, I don't believe shall. The Master has plans for you." I sauntered toward him and buffed the priestess's nails against her ugly robe. "And I enjoy watching you struggle too much." Truly I did. The taste of his desperate squirming was a fine wine upon my talented tongue.

The Pharaoh watched my every movement like a hawk. It was so enjoyable to have a captive audience! I tossed the priestess's hair over my shoulder and gave him my best smile. "You need not fear for your life. I will deliver you to the Master largely unadulterated." I licked my lips. 'Largely' indeed. "He is in need of your vessel-"

He remained silent and poised. So haughty. Small or not he may yet make a good host. Dusky skin, crimson eyes and that almost hairless body. He was a shade too young for me but had such potential. He was but a youth after all. There was time for him to developed into a more appealing man when grown.

"-However I cannot say the same for your companion." I leaned against the large lizard-faced urn and traced a tiny circle onto its side. "He has served his purpose."

The little Pharaoh stared fiercely as though he would pounce on me like a jungle cat if given the chance. How fetching. I narrowed my eyes, eager to feast on his reaction to my next words. I kissed the jar I was reclining against; the dragon-boy was lucky to receive the gift of such a soft farewell from a skillful woman as vivacious as I.

"Come." I bid the Pharaoh, stepping to the chasm's edge and sweeping my hand over the sight of the canyon below. "Come and see."

He refused me, and so I marched him to my side by force, fists clenched and shoulders shivering. My mark craned his neck downwards and toward the pristine oasis nestled at the canyon's heart. The blue waters glittered and sparkled in the sun like a rare and gorgeous jewel.

"It's just as it was." It almost was. He had recalled the oasis to its finest details. Each unruly shrub and upstart palm caressing the pool's sapphire depths was so heavenly, so perfect, I could no longer distinguish the scene as a memory or a work of his imagination.

"Oh yes. Just as it was."

Before the waters were tainted forever. Before the bloated carcasses of his own people were left floating upon the water's surface to rot under the Egyptian sun and be picked apart by the desert scavengers.

The memory was behind his eyes. He stared at the oasis - the paradise he had befouled, his mouth was ajar and his eyes wide. Good. Very good.

It was time to add to that pain, as he had added to mine. I recalled the sourness of it as the sweet spice of a long awaited vengeance wrapped around my tongue. Exquisite. Sensational.

"One more body lying among these rocks will make little difference, to one such as yourself." I added without care.

His head jerked upright. "What happened here was a mistake." He all but confessed. "One that can never be taken back."

"Oh, but you have taken it back" I smirked. In this, his afterlife, he had remade this place in all its previous splendor - in all of its beauty. The skeletons were gone; the plants flourishing; the oasis waters immaculate. He had erased the truth for something more palatable.

His brow furrowed in discontent. The very shape of regret, yet regrets held no meaning to the angry dead.

"My master may have taken the name Anubis for himself but as the sun sets, it is you who and your line who are true harbingers of death."

With an outstretch of my hand and a flex of my fingers the order was given. "And now you will bestow death upon Seto Kaiba."

My Mark upon his skin pulsed dark red like a lovers bruise, willing the Pharaoh to push the jar over the cliff edge and watch it shatter dead and broken onto the rocks beneath, along with its captive.

"Ghnn!" An abrupt sound of struggle was torn from his soft and pretty mouth. My red-eyed captive gritted his teeth with a newly lit fierceness. He made a wonderful picture.

He sank his teeth so deeply into the flesh of his lips that blood blossomed from them as he fought his own limbs. His body jerked but did not obey beyond that and I was impressed by the abruptly kindled resistance, though it burned against my interests.

His lithe little body continued to flinch and shake against the compulsion of my brand as he fought its magic. There were flames in the defiant stare he attempted to sear me with. "Never! I won't permit it!" he decreed, his shout heated enough to make my Bird of Roses screech behind me.

I laughed at his profound misinterpretation of his current situation. "Permission is irrelevant." Such hideous words. "Now do it." I snapped, loosing my already overly generous patience. I would not be denied.

I flicked my fingers toward the jar once more. His body shuddered as he floundered to repress the Mark's manipulation. Blood dribbled from his lip down his angular chin and the carnal sight was made even better by his pained expression.

"Give up, little Pharaoh." I told him. I hoped he didn't. I wished to watch him break.

I urged the Mark to lift his hand up toward the urn - to blast it over the edge of the canyon in one brilliant climax of power. The brand on his hand sizzled with dark energy as I pushed it to its limits - feeding more and more into his limbs than ever before and pulling a desperate, despairing yell from him.

His long shout echoed on the wind as my Mark flooded him with its aura - his limbs seized as though struck by lightening and finally he was mine and could fight me no longer. My breath caught in my chest as inch by inch he rose his head back and his eyes - this eyes shone like freshly spilled blood and his expression promised nothing but unrelenting wrath. Though his eyes never relented in their terrible promise the Pharaoh's arms fell limply to his sides, his head bowed to me as Mark of the Rose smouldered and smoked from his skin.

"You're mine now." I observed, my Mark holding him frozen in place. How many fine men had I won with this spell? Too many to count, though few would be as noteworthy as the Pharaoh of Egypt.

"No...". He took ragged breaths, his tone angry and so beautiful.

I didn't bother to sheath the smile on my face.

**Atem**

Teleia's vile smirk was feral and cruel.

She was trying to distract me. If I had any hope of rebelling against the spell I had to keep my mind clear! If I dwelt on that memory as she so clearly hoped for me to, then my concentration would break.

My power over this – this situation and even my own body was slipping through my hands, edging toward escaping my grasp with each passing breath.

I would never give in but I could no longer keep the Mark at bay. My control, or what remained of it, was gone. I felt only mounting ire at my inability to overpower it and reclaim myself with each passing second. Sweat dipped down my face, down my nose and into my eyes. I could no longer even lift my arms to wipe it. They hung by my sides limply, as though I were but a puppet and my strings had been severed.

The comparison was apt, but though Mark of the Rose let my limbs dangle loose in this moment I had no doubt that it was but a precursor to tightening its hold on them once more.

From Teleia's mouth came a low dark chuckling that grew in madness and pitch into a shrieking laugh every bit as deafening as the screeches of Bird of Roses. I clenched my jaw against it. I had heard this sound before, many times, from the mouths of many different villains. It was the laugh of a conqueror, a victor, one bereft of sense or sanity.

The sound didn't stop as she raised one of my arms and peeled my fingers backward to aim my palm at the Dragon Capture Jar. I urged my body to resist, determined to still fight her - yet felt only the sting of my own exhaustion answer and a pulsing in my forehead.

The warmth of my magic heated in my palm as it gathered against my will. Within a moment the strike would be ready to blast Kaiba from the edge of the chasm.

Was this what Yugi had felt in the beginning of our partnership? Beholden to an ill will that stole control of his body and transformed it into a vessel of its own dark agenda? I understood it now; why Yugi had cried in Duelist Kingdom as he pulled dominion of his body and deck back from me, saving Kaiba's life.

I hadn't known Kaiba well enough at that time to see through the mask of his arrogance to the raw desperation that must have driven him to the edge of those castle walls. I had only seen a prideful challenger demanding I submit to him, or end him. My decision had been decisive and simple: He was a worthy opponent even though he had tested my patience and so granting him the request seemed appropriate. He had made no secret of the fact he would die for the game and to deny him that right was to refuse his honor.

Yugi was wiser and had known better.

Now my unbridled wrath was to be visited on Kaiba once again. Unwittingly Teleia's Mark of the Rose had poised me to repeat one of my greatest shames. I could taste Teleia's intent in the wayward arcana coursing through my veins. Curse her. I couldn't let this honorless manipulation be his end!

Kaiba was a warrior. The definition of the word in my time varied greatly from in his but it was apt nevertheless. I could never permit this witchcraft to be the thing to destroy him; unable to defend himself or even see the face of his attacker. He deserved much better than that. He deserved the right to show down against whatever force was brave enough to try taking his life - eyes flashing and coat tails angrily whipping around him.

The magic in my palm filled, fully pooled and ready for release.

"Grhng!" I fought the Mark once more and it drove me to my knees in malevolent reprimand, ensuring that even as it did so my hand never once lost its aim on the Dragon Capture Jar.

Was this the limit of my strength?

I heard my own defeated shout echo in my ears as surely as a second silent rendition raced outward from my heart. My stomach lurched. I waited for the crash of the Jar shattering on the rocks far below. It was cowardly, but in a moment of weakness I closed my eyes tightly. I didn't want to see as it happened – to stare across my lands and commit to memory every cloud in the sky and rock at my feet as I heard the Jar containing Kaiba shatter into nothing - struck down with my own hand.

The wait lasted forever until finally I understood the meaning of the silence screaming in my ears.

I'd heard nothing.

"What is this!?" Teleia shrieked from somewhere.

She sounded so distant I could scarcely hear the words as my pulse pounded in my ears and all of my attention was drawn to my hand. A warm feeling floated onto my skin, tentative, gentle, like a stray feather touching down upon the surface of the Nile. It was near imperceptible, yet somehow formidable enough to have mitigated my spell from firing by simply covering my palm.

My eyes took such strength to open and for a moment I was unsure if I had managed to do so or not.

While precariously placed, the Dragon Capture Jar remained as it had been, unmoved and unharmed but someone else filled the foreground of my vision. The sight of a very similar face met mine, worried, a little confused and achingly familiar. Had I fallen into a waking dream woven from the treads of wishful thinking?

"Yugi?"

...Seeing him, I felt near faint.

"Atem!" No sound came out of his mouth as he silently called back, but kneeling in front of me like this I could see his lips mouth the syllables of the name we had discovered together. His face was close enough to touch, though I knew already from the ethereal translucency of the astral projection that to do so would be impossible.

He nodded enthusiastically and then his expression turned worried as he examined me at length, his fond purple gaze gliding across my features. I could scarcely imagine my own pained expression. For a moment his eyes shone bright with panic and then that moment was gone and a steely determination settled over him.

"Leave it to me." The look on his face said.

Words alone could never describe the depths of the relief his presence - his determined expression - filled me with. I would not be fighting this battle alone after all. He glanced upwards at our foe with a fierce vigor.

"Ishizu?" He questioned without speaking.

"Isis." I rushed to explain "And she has been possessed by one of Anubis's minions". My breaths and my words were labored.

Yugi did not react to the sphinx's ill-natured leer. He seemed stronger for it.

Though he was but a ghost in my world I leaned into his grip on my hand, glad for his silent support. There was a sensation of soft heat; a phantom touch, or the illusion of it. As though our thoughts were still joined Yugi pulled me further toward him. No, I realized - it was no coincidence. While appraising me he must have noticed the angry black stain that my hand now bore. He frowned at the Mark, turning my hand over with his to see it from different angles before glancing back to my face in question.

"It's-" I began, and then the cruel glyph sizzled on my skin as hot as a lit coal, beckoning me away. "-Argh!"

Yugi's mouth opened in silent shock as I could do nothing but close my eyes and bare the Mark. It's bloody scarlet aura exploded outwards to apply more pressure to me, painting the landscape in red light and Yugi's brow creased in concentration in response, focused on the brand with the utmost intensity. The Mark intended to force my hand out of his grip, but it became firmer around my hand in reply - unwilling to let go. A foreign, intensely disturbing sensation rippled outward from the place that our hands met.

This was... I gasped in shock as the unfamiliar feeling of another's magic poured into me.

This time the feeling was not hostile or vicious as the Mark had been, but benign. I had never experienced this before. The warmth of Yugi's spirit began filling my form, rekindling the fires of my magic and breathing life into the ashes and embers. The numbness in my arms faded and the headache pounding drum-like in between my eyes dimmed to a dull ache as his energy soothed me, almost building me anew.

Magic had no outlet in the modern world but as my reincarnation Yugi's body still held a reservoir of it lying dormant within him. Now his amateur magic was lured out easily in my afterlife and through benevolent force of will alone he channeled it from his body and into mine, sharing it with me.

The pain of Mark of the Rose's dark arcana lessened and faded as Yugi's own boundlessly warm energy diluted the Mark's poisonous spellcraft.

It was unlikely he even knew what he was doing. The look on his face confirmed it. His eyebrows shot upwards toward his hair as I relaxed into the feeling and leaned toward him. He couldn't know what was happening – how greedily I was accepting the gift of his magic, but he smiled in understanding nevertheless as I struggled not to overstep my bounds. It was not his magical potential or any acrane training that made this exchange so, but his deep and truest intent to help. His generosity and the undeniable strength of his friendship nearly stopped my breath.

His expression grew dizzy and fatigued as mine grew more alert with every moment he spent readily fusing me with his spiritual energy.

Mark of the Rose flared again, yet its grim crimson aura was easily overcome by the golden aura permeating my skin from Yugi's body. The malicious scarlet gleam was driven back inside of the brand, no longer able to stain the surrounding with its malevolent hue as the answering gold aura from our combined bodies banished it back into its sigil.

The mark was neutralized.

I flexed the fingers of the hand Yugi held. The spell was no longer able to deny me that. Finally I could return his reassuring grasp with my own.

I nodded to him, "That's enough-" I leaned back from him with a smile, parting us as my vitality was restored. "-Thank you, partner." I added. Yugi smiled brightly, his aura matching his expression and bobbed his head silently at my thanks. The title was an understatement as I was humbled by his kindness once more.

"Sure thing!" he seemed to say.

I could never repay his generosity, but I could make good use of it. With his strength to call my own I smirked at the Mark. It stood no chance against our union.

"Now, let us rid me of this blasted spell once and for all". I tightened my hands around his and focused all my powers on the brand marring my flesh.

Needing no further elaboration Yugi copied me exactly, his soft expression turning resolute once more and together with a synchrony I had missed we channeled our powers and our intent into the infernal spell. Our combined auras rushed into the Mark – turning the accursed tattoo from black to grey and grey to white and finally to a blistering gold before it exploded from my flesh in an upward burst of shimmering dust. What remained of it was stolen away on the wind and as abruptly as the Mark had been inflicted upon me, it was gone.

We stood up together in tandem, our movements a perfect mirror of one another, as though we still shared one body. There was only one unexpected difference. Yugi laughed silently, though I could well enough imagine the buoyancy of the sound, and pointed at the tops of our heads. He was taller than me now. I smirked back at him good-naturedly. I suppose that was inevitable.

With my composure restored I turned my attention to our attacker.

"Surrender, Teleia." I commanded. "You cannot overcome our combined strength." My magic rushed to my aid as I drew it into my hands as easily as a Duel Monsters card. It was mine once more - as it should be.

"Pah!" Teleia spat back with ravenous conviction. Gone was all of her previous purring and cooing. She contorted Isis's face into an expression of pure malice and teeth and stepped closer to Bird of Roses. "It seems our time together must end for now, little Pharaoh." I hadn't noticed her move back. She must have taken the advent of Yugi's appearance to begin her retreat. As she should. Knowing that this situation was now not in her favor showed more clarity of thought than I'd observed from her thus far, however if she believed I would allow her to make an escape then she was sorely mistaken.

"I think not!" I remarked. With the barest graze of my fingers against my Duel Disk, my chosen card came to my hand.

"Spellbinding Circle! Trap Sphinx Teleia where she stands!"

The hexagram spun into being at Teleia's feet as she was imprisoned in place above the circle's central white rune. Both she and her Bird of Roses were thrown into silhouette by the spell's harsh light. Together they were crushed to the ground as the four smaller circles poised within the master illuminated the area in striking orange tones - as though everything around us had been set ablaze.

Sphinx Teleia writhed against the ground while Bird of Roses attempted to escape into the air and was instead crushed back to the earth by the magic of the circle, its wings flexing weakly for purchase and talons straining fruitlessly.

"Now, stay down." I taunted, feeling a smirk form on my lips at our downed foes. Isis would be back in control of her body soon enough - though I had another comrade to free first.

Yugi silently beamed at me as I bid a second card answer me. This one was not mine to command but a fortunate addition to my cards since the game had chosen to draft Kaiba and I into a singular duelist.

The Flute of Summoning Dragon was a staple of Kaiba's strategies, as omnipresent as the dragons it spirited onto the field. It arrived in my hand larger and weightier than I would have expected. Yugi raised an eyebrow at me and pointed to the horn in wordless inquiry, recognizing the oddity of its presence in my deck.

"It's a long story." I chuckled, lifting one end to my lips while aiming the other towards the Dragon Capture Jar. With a deep breath and a sizeable blow into the horn a rich peel of sound thundered from its depths. The Dragon Capture Jar trembled and violently shook from its base in response.

For a moment it seemed more inclined to fall over and shatter of its own accord than release its prisoner but a furious roar bellowed upwards from its depths to answer the Flute's song.

Cracks in the Jar splintered across its rough surface like steadily growing spiderwebs as a white talon reared out of its mouth and Kaiba's draconic body shot out of the Jar. Yugi startled and took a step back as an extremely irate dragon was deposited back onto the earth next to us.

**Kaiba**

"Therefore...-" it wheezed. If gravel could talk it would sound like this. It drew out the length of each word to an impossible extreme. My skin crawled waiting for the disembodied voice to spit its words out. I'd be half way to the grave by the time it finished the damn sentence. "You...are..." It emphasized 'are' with a tone I hated - like a teacher lecturing a kid they thought was slow. "a...dragon."

And so the conversation had gone in a perfect three hundred and sixty degree circle, metaphorically speaking. Mathematically there was no such thing as a perfect circle.

"No. I'm. Not." I snarled back at it.

Everything about the Dragon Capture Jar card was systematically designed to anger me. It was stubborn, its logic was flawed and it refused to even consider anything outside of whatever preset parameters the damn Jar was programmed to adhere to.

I paced the bottom of the ceramic pit trying to tighten the grounds of my argument.

It had take a minute for me to figure this ridiculous nonsense out after the jar had sealed me. I'd been drawn into it and discarded to the bottom of a massive clay trashcan like a piece of insignificant garbage. The exit was a tiny pin point of light so far above my head it might as well have been an orbiting satellite. Tch. So either the jar was supersized or I was now minuscule. Which way around didn't matter, and after the Jar had started 'talking' at me I'd found there was a better target for my thoughts.

The dragon-headed relief leered at me with glowing eyes. Without moving its badly sculpted mouth its voice began echoing around its pathetic pottery prison again.

"Be...still...drakeling..." It repeated on a loop for the third time. It seemed capable of rudimentary logic and conversation, but I was fairly sure I was dealing with some sort of artificial intelligence, and I would know, I'd built a more than a few. This one was was poorly implemented.

This was all extremely impossible, but despite that it was happening anyway. Whatever. Growling in irritation I began my logic loop again.

"Listen up, idiot. You're a jar that seals dragons and I'm not a dragon. Let me out."

"Is... that...so..?" it ground out, repeating the same dialogue as the first time I'd tried this.

"Yes." I snapped. "I'm a human. I just look like a dragon. Deal with it."

It made a humming sound, like it was computing something.

"Do... humans... have... wings?"

The dialogue tree branched off from the previous path, but I could already tell this was going to be equally as annoying as the first round had been. Great.

"Do... humans...have...tails?"

Was it mocking me? "Shut up!" I roared at it in frustration.

"Do... humans... roar?" It questioned with insulting finality.

"No..." it decided. "And so... you... must... be... a... dragon."

With a second noise of raw fucking aggravation I slashed at the side of the Jar with my arm. A pulse of white hot energy shocked me back from the wall like an electric fence.

"Be...still...drakeling..."

"Ghn!"

This thing was useless! I'd just have to make my own way out. I glared at the tiny spot of light that was the jar's opening. I might as well have been staring at the damn moon.

Climbing out wasn't an option, that was for sure. The distance was an issue, and then there was the fact that my arms and legs were all unfamiliar sizes. It was waking up from a six-month coma to find I'd grown another two inches all over again, except this time there were scales and extra limbs involved.

I tried shifting my wings but couldn't open one fully without the dislocation making it tremble. Functionally they weren't too far removed from a human hand. If I imagined splaying my fingers as wide as possible and flexing my wrist that seemed enough to get my wings to extend outwards and bend, until the pain of flexing out something that's not properly connected to the socket its meant to be plugged into jumped me again. The ligaments and tendons that controlled the movement of my left shoulder must have somehow been hooked up to my newly acquired left wing too - moving it made both limbs ache and the stabbing pain through muscle groupings I'd never had before made it feel even worse. Whoever designed them to work that way was a fool.

'Designed'? Yeah, as if.

Evolution was the source of all biological 'design'. Dragons were fictitious so they sure as hell had skipped the evolutionary process. Lucky for them. A real creature of their size and weight wouldn't possibly become airborne with such a limited wing span and as for the lighting breath, well electricity was more inclined to travel through almost anything else in existence before resorting to actual air particles.

"Huhrnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!"

The peel of a horn sounded loudly in the jar's hollow gut, echoing around my head like a migraine.

"Ah..." The Jar hummed out like some geriatric geezer. "It seems... that your freedom... calls, drakeling."

Oh great, now what?

"Nh!" I snarled at the walls as suddenly the jar began to shrink all around me – the white opening speeding towards me. The landscape on the other side of the jar's mouth came into view like a Polaroid photo developing at record speed. Details of the edge of the forest and the red rocks of some yawning chasm rendered into full focus just as my arm was in range to reach out toward it. Arid wind rippled across my scales as that limb broke free into the outside world and within seconds the rest of my body followed it.

I felt grass brush against my stomach and torso before I realized I was back outside of the Jar. My legs ached as I shifted them into position underneath me and pushed up from the ground. This body was so heavy. Every movement took twice the effort it should of. I'd never thought of dragons as being anything other than fierce and deadly but right now I felt ungainly and lumbering.

Oh great. And apparently I was seeing double.

**Atem**

In a magnificent flurry of silver-white claws and scales Kaiba reared up from the earth and beheld the new setting with a sharp sweep of his head. How much he had been privy to while sealed within the Jar was unknown to me but he noticed Yugi's spirit at my back near instantaneously and lashed his head toward him for a better look.

"Teleia's spell nearly became our undoing-" Yugi jumped backwards with I suspect a silent squeak as Kaiba prowled forward and inspected his authenticity with a demanding growl. "-Yugi is the one who saved us." I explained to Kaiba as the hero of the moment subtly attempted to dodge away from the snarling dragon maw now pointed at him. At the sound of her name Kaiba broke off his pursuit of Yugi for a mere moment to identify where Teleia now was and seemed to take her new position immobilized beneath the magic of my Spellbinding Circle in his stride. He hissed dismissively at her before aiming his deep gaze backward on the empty Dragon Capture Jar.

With a typical ferocity Kaiba snarled back at his jailer and angrily slammed his tail against it. In his single swipe the Jar was throw from the edge of the cliff to go sailing through the wind and into the canyon beneath. The faint echo of shattering pottery followed its descent. The action was as predictable as it was pointless, but I couldn't deny it amused me. The Dragon Capture Jar was a spell of my High Priest's creation. It was ironic it found itself the target of Kaiba's obvious contempt.

Kaiba snorted at the empty space the Jar had occupied but seconds ago menacingly as though to prove a point and then turned back to the two of us.

"Thank you, partner." I told Yugi once more, struggling not to chuckle at the skittish expression he wore as he moved away from Kaiba's overly-intimidating attempt to appraise him for defects or fallacies. He glanced to me and quirked his lips in a distracted smile and sharply dodged backwards as Kaiba sneered at him, revealing a row of dagger-like teeth.

I suspected Kaiba was only a moment away from starting to make sport of the situation and I wouldn't permit that. "Enough now." I told him. The draconic duelist glared at me through slitted eyes but relented with a defiant grunt and let Yugi step away.

"How did you come to be here?" I asked Yugi. Had I called out for aid? Perhaps, but that alone couldn't have been enough to draw him here. Such a thing requires at the very least the magic of a Millennium Item to be present, if not directly applied to task.

Happy to put some distance between his head and Kaiba's own Yugi edged closer to me and mouthed something not in my mother tongue, but in Japanese; the language we had last conversed in. The one we had always used. The shapes his mouth made had never felt so foreign to me before.

Realization that I no longer simply knew Yugi's meaning - was no longer privy to his thoughts or able to glean his intention with a beat of our shared heart - flooded everything else from my mind. This barest of suggestions that the bond we'd shared was now lesser gave me pause. A lonely feeling of singularity washed over me, softly scoring my heart as sea salt scores skin.

Yugi watched me attentively. In my moment of woeful clarity he simply smiled sympathetically and perhaps even a little ruefully. Kaiba growled too and turned to me, varying the tones of the feral noise as though loosely trying to mimic the sound of human speech. It seems he understood Yugi's muted lip movements, yet between his draconic noises and Yugi's phantasmal silence comprehension eluded me.

Yugi sensed my confusion. He shook his head slowly and once again my partner's intent escaped me.

After a pause and a thoughtful clasping of his chin Yugi enthusiastically raised one finger, apparently having a new idea. Using his thumbs and the first finger on each hand he created a square shape.

"Ah." The gesture as much easier to understand than the voiceless words had been. "You used the Cube." I translated. He nodded energetically then jumped again as suddenly Kaiba's attention turned hostile with an abrupt snarl. Now Kaiba sized him up again with narrowed eyes.

I ignored the capricious dragon. Yugi watched me do so and copied my calmness to match. Kaiba's abrupt fits of anger weren't abnormal, though were definitely more distracting when his teeth were the size of arrowheads.

"But why?" I asked, frowning a little as I did so. I didn't doubt Yugi's motivations, but why did he seek me now? We had been parted so seamlessly for so long. Perhaps too seamlessly.

He pointed to his eyes, and then to me.

"To see me?" I suggested. It seemed as likely an interpretation as any. Kaiba rolled his eyes in a manner that was quite strange while in his current form. We would address that in a moment.

Yugi nodded vehemently and then stopped. He scratched his cheek thoughtfully and then instead hesitantly shook his head with uncertainty. He held his hand in mid air, fingers splayed and quickly tilted it from side to side.

It was a most confusing display. For hope of any additional insight I glanced to Kaiba who glanced back and subtly bounced his wings in a makeshift shrug. He gritted his fangs afterward. His shoulder must still be a discomfort.

Fortunately Yugi was not easily demoralized. He flexed his hands into twin circles and placed them over his eyes. I recognized the action, though the technology would not be invented in my time for many many years. Binoculars. He mimed peering around the landscape with them.

"You're looking for something?" I guessed. I was more confident this time.

I paused as he gave my interpretation a thumbs up and then stilled. The thoughtful look came back onto his face and his eyebrows furrowed pensively. His face shifted from concentration to sheepishness and back again as he contemplated how to mime his intent.

Finally he sighed in reluctant resignation - then scowled darkly in a manner I had never seen him do before. With dramatic intent he planted his feet shoulder width apart and crossed his arms tightly over his chest, tilting back his shoulders and forward his hips into a set of unlikely yet familiar angles.

It was a rather exaggerated, but a good likeness. Kaiba's furious growl only made the display more comedic and I laughed in the face of the dragon as he roared at Yugi's impression.

"You're looking for Kaiba." I noted, completing the sentence. I could barely force out the words though my chuckles. Yugi wilted from the pose in relief and deflated to stand more normally before sidling around me as Kaiba snapped his jaws at him.

"It was a convincing impression." I told Kaiba. He glowered and growled low in his throat at me in warning.

Ah. It was belated, but I understood Yugi's confusion.

"This is Kaiba." I explained, sweeping my hand over the winged ball of indignation that was currently glaring at us icily.

Yugi looked from me to Kaiba and then back again. He perked an eyebrow at me and then seemed to accept the situation in all its strangeness. His eyes went wide and he blushed as a drop of sweat rolled down the side of his forehead. He waved his hands in front of Kaiba in apology.

"Yet another long story-" I explained, watching as Yugi nervously scratched the back of his head and smiled apologetically at Kaiba. He sneered at Yugi in reply and sharply turned his head away in a huff but did indeed stop growling nevertheless. It was a heartening response. I doubted one of my own apologies could have ever placated Kaiba so easily. Yugi was truly a most formidable friend.

"-And one Kaiba can tell you for himself." I added.

De-Fusion glittered into existence in my Duel Disk ready for my draw.

"I-I won't. Allow. You!" Teleia gasped out. She was no longer completely prone beneath the power of my Spellbinding Circle and had struggled enough to recover slightly. Her head was raised in a mad, determined smirk as she leered at us from her position on her hands and knees like a beast at bay. Her mouth grew ever wider as her eyes bulged slightly as her back and limbs shook with the strain it took to keep even her prostrated position from being crushed back against the floor by my spell.

She trembled with effort just as I had moments before but steadily inched her hand toward her dark Duel Disk to pull a sticky black card free from its depths. It morphed and split down the middle from being one card into two and she set both oozing objects into play.

* * *

**AN**: Despite pulling from the English dub version of the characters, I'm using the ages of the Japanese versions because the English dub does some rather weird rewrites on how long the series takes canonically and how old some of the cast are.

The logic I'm working with is that according to their Japanese bios Yugi and his classmates (including Kaiba) are supposed to be 16 when the series starts and are probably 18 by the time their class is shown to graduate in the DSoD movie – this likely also happens in mid to late March based on a normal Japanese high school graduation schedule. Atem on the other hand was sealed when he was 16 according to his bio, so based on the idea that his body in the afterlife is an exact replica of the one from before he was trapped in the Puzzle he'll still be 16 and therefore now younger than all of them.

**AN #2:** Jan 2020 update: Don't worry, this hasn't been abandoned! I reread the whole fic with fresh eyes over the holidays and spotted a lot of room for improvement so I'm currently doing some rewrites to this chapter and rethinking a few bits in others before posting the next chapter.


	17. Chapter 17

**AN: **As of Jan 26 2020 this whole fic has been re-uploaded with a variety of tweaks and re-writes to correct inconsistencies, improve story flow and better define the mechanics of the Eye of Anubis. Chapters 5-8 have been partially re-written to include new sections and slightly altered events that give High Priest Seto something to do in the earlier chapters. The Mokuba section of chapter 12 has also been tweaked and a new Kaiba section has been added to chapter 16, along with Atem activating the card Soul Rope in chapter 15.

* * *

**Yugi**

"I-I won't. Allow. You!" Teleia gasped.

Atem had called her Teleia, but she looked so much like Ishizu it was scary. Kaiba and I had ended up looking different to Atem and his High Priest because we were reincarnated in Japan, but as an Egyptian herself Ishizu was almost Isis's twin. It made me want to run over and help her as she struggled to sit up under Atem's Spellbinding Circle despite how bad that idea was.

"Summoning in a Soul of the Pure to return your strength is one folly too many." she chuckled. Atem promptly glanced down at his Duel Disk. It wasn't like the model I'd used at the Duel Disk exhibition - the ones that just got released - instead it looked like Kaiba had made a custom one just for Atem. It fitted him like a glove, in fact it matched his look so well I hadn't even realized it was a Duel Disk at first. I poked my head over his shoulder to take a look at its readout. Soul of the Pure wasn't a card any of us had ever carried in our decks but it was there on Atem's side of the field all the same in the next card slot over from Soul Rope. Was that representing me?

"He will serve me now!" She declared and thrust out her hand. I heard Kaiba's low growl of warning as he narrowed his reptilian eyes.

Teleia's first card played itself onto the field in front of her. It was the size of a stone tablet but definitely a Duel Monster's card in appearance. The Soul Absorption magic card somehow activated despite no cards having been removed from play, but then again Kaiba was now a Blue-Eyes White Dragon so it looked like anything was possible.

"You cannot have forgotten that the afterlife is a dangerous place for living souls, little Pharaoh!" She shouted through eerie witch-like laughter. That didn't sound good. I wasn't sure I wanted to know what Soul Absorption was going to do under these circumstances.

Atem gritted his teeth and scowled at her words. "She is correct." He reluctantly conceded before turning to me just enough to keep Teleia fully in his vision. "Quickly, can you return to your world?" He questioned sharply.

Return? "I don't know..." I wasn't even sure how I got here. I shook my head at him and he hummed thoughtfully. "Is that bad?" I asked, though no sound came out of my mouth.

"A living soul will be very venerable here, especially without a vessel." He answered my question without even needing to hear it, just like he used to. It felt great to have little bit of that connection back.

Teleia cut the warm feeling off with another crazy laugh. Her mad eyes sliced over to me like they were magnetized to my face as the corners of her lips curled up into something that resembled a smile but really wasn't. "Venerable indeed-" Teleia struggled onto her knees and opened up her arms up wide in a hug that looked everything but welcoming. "-Now, as my spell bids you, be absorbed into my body and restore my strength!" She commanded and I took a step back away from her.

The magic card pulsed and I was lifted off of my feet and into the air as though being pulled up by an invisible string.

"Uh, Atem?" He couldn't hear me, I knew that, but he shouted my name out as the gentle tug of the card turned into a massive yank and reeled me in until I fell forward into its pull.

"Come to me, little soul!" she smirked. I blushed as the spell sucked me toward her cleavage and turned to run. I got no traction while in the air and must have looked like a cartoon character as I scrambled on the spot.

"Yugi." Atem called out my name. He paused like he was deep in thought. "She's right." He told me, beginning to grin as I'd felt him do so many times before when drawing a winning card. "Go towards her." He added, throwing Teleia a taunting smirk.

That seemed like a really bad idea, but this was Atem we were talking about. His eyes locked onto mine, so certain and confident and impossible not to place all of my trust in no matter how crazy his request was. I nodded back and stopped running on the spot. I didn't doubt him for a moment.

I heard a disbelieving snarl from Kaiba somewhere behind me as I relaxed into Teleia's spell and let it drag me forward at an ever increasing speed. "Yessss!" She cried, her skewed dress, messy hair and desperate eyes with tiny pupils making her look more like an animal than a human. She licked her lips as I flew towards her, about to collide into her breasts as Atem's voice cut through the air.

"Now, Magical Cylinder; rebound Yugi's soul back toward me!" Atem shouted.

"No!" Teleia shrieked. The moment before I could smack into Teleia's chest one of the tubes appeared in front me, my momentum throwing me into it as it funnelled me from one cylinder to the second and shot me out of the other side back toward Atem like some kind of carnival ride.

"My Magical Cylinders turns your Soul Absorption spell back on me-" Atem boasted, his fingers grasping at the Millennium Puzzle around his neck. "- or more specifically, my Millennium Puzzle!" He declared, naming it as his target. His eyes caught mine as I hurtled back toward the Puzzle, beginning to feel way too much like a ping-pong ball for comfort. His expression was determined, but apprehensive. Even though we weren't sharing my body anymore I recognized the silent question in his face; he was asking for my permission. I smiled back and nodded encouragingly, understanding his logic. The Puzzle was made to store souls so it was the best place for me right now, especially if Teleia wanted to somehow use me against my friends. I wouldn't let that happen.

He blinked slowly in reply, "Just temporarily." He assured me, he kept looking for some bit of hesitation from me but he didn't find any. I trusted him with my life, uh, and my soul.

"I promise to return you after Teleia has been dealt with." he quietly added as I reached out to touch the Puzzle, phasing through it and into it at the same time. It wasn't my first time as an astral projection or my first time getting stuck inside of the Puzzle, so I just went with it and allowed Soul Absorption to shepherd me into it without a fight. It was like falling down a long tunnel, or into an old well. I fell away from the light of the outside world and deeper into the dark depths of the Puzzle, suddenly spinning and slowing as I reached the bottom until I was floating inches from ground and was finally able to safely touch down on the stone floor.

"This won't take long." Atem's voice announced, reverberating from the walls around me like a loud speaker.

"Good luck, partner!" I shouted back, a little surprised to actually here the words come out of my mouth and echo around the chamber.

"Thank you, Yugi." I could hear he was smiling from the tone of his voice. It felt good to actually be able to talk again. After he beat Teleia I hoped we'd get the opportunity to catch up for a bit before I had to go back home.

I felt Atem's concentration shift away from the Puzzle and back towards Teleia, giving her his full and undivided attention. This felt strange. I couldn't close my eyes and watch though Atem's like I used to when he was still the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle. There was some kind of disconnect, more like the way it had been when we'd fought against Anubis and I'd been forcibly dragged into the Puzzle along with Joey and Tristan. I really missed those guys right about now.

I glanced around the unfamiliar antechamber, not really recognizing a whole lot now that Atem's Soul Room was fully furnished. Every time I'd been inside of the Puzzle it had been barren and hollow; really just a labyrinth of empty corridors and rooms with stairs that went everywhere and nowhere at the same time... but that had been while Atem had still been Yami, back when he'd had no memories.

It wasn't empty in here anymore.

Instead it was a mighty Egyptian palace with hieroglyphed walls, golden decorations and lavish furnishings stretching in every direction. Braziers and wall sconces threw warm orange light across every surface and incense filled the air but somehow despite the new additions it was all still Atem. The decorations were dignified without being too crazy and there was a hush to the place; a pensive sort of aura just like the one I'd sensed from him every night he stayed up as Yami brooding over his past, or future, or the many duels in between. Even though he had a real name now I couldn't help but think how well the name 'Yami' had fit him, and it still did; everywhere in the room the light didn't touch the shadows were almost pitch black in depth. Mysterious and fathomless but natural and benign. I made me feel warm and nostalgic at the same time.

Actually, the more I grinned at the shadows and reminisced the more I realized that there was just one bit that didn't look like it belonged. A thin golden rope that seemed to glow like an old night light was feeding into it, drawing my eye along its length and into an overshadowed gap in the Puzzle wall.

But actually it wasn't a shadow at all.

Tiny pin-pricks of light became obvious as my eyes adjusted to the gloom. Stars. They were stars. If I squinted I could make out thousands of them in the bluish-blackness. The opening itself was about the size of an average door, but it was more like a hole someone had knocked through the wall. Jagged bricks had toppled to the floor at the void's threshold and the stones had been pulled away from each other to create the gap.

That didn't seem normal. The Millennium Puzzle had always had a bunch of rooms with strange things in them, but never a hole into outer space. "Hey, Atem?" I called out, I wanted to ask about it but I wasn't sure if he'd hear me now that his focus was back on facing off against Teleia.

He didn't reply so I frowned to myself. Soul Rooms were weird places. They were a bit like dreams; they had their own internal logic that wasn't always easy to figure out, but everything in them usually had some kind of meaning. I didn't know what this tumbled down wall meant, but it had to mean something. I had to check it out for Atem's sake. If something was wrong in his Soul Room then he needed to know about it, and fast.

The bricks of the wall crumbled away under my fingers as I grabbed onto them to steady myself, the dislodged pebbles just dropping away into empty space without a sound. I moved to the glowing rope instead, holding onto it tightly. It was hot and it pulsed in my hand and disappeared so far into the distant reaches of outer space that I couldn't see an end, or what it was tethered to. I was just happy to have something to keep hold of. I took a deep breath and leaned through it. If I really was peeping into outer space holding my breath wasn't going to help, but it felt like the right thing to do.

Even as a disembodied soul my heart went crazy in my chest. The idea of losing my grip and going hurtling off into space was terrifying. This must be what astronauts felt like right before a space walk. The moment my head leaned beyond the safety of the Puzzle walls a shiver went down my spine. This place was definitely foreign. It didn't feel like Atem at all.

It was eerie. It was silent and empty. Just taking a first step towards the gap and out of the warmth of Atem's Soul Room made me feel chilled and like I was just as isolated as every single one of the stars... but even so the view was amazing. I could see galaxies and make out familiar constellations in the foreground, most of them I recognized from the sky above Domino on the rare days the city lights didn't drown them out. Behind them purple, pink and orange nebulas swirled together against the black background. Even the stars themselves danced and flickered. They were never still and for some reason it made me think about the ongoing fiery explosion each of them represented.

Whose was all this? It wasn't Atem's, that was for sure, but it also felt familiar. It was cold and dark and really really lonely, but beyond the surface there was the heat and intensity of stars combusting, living and dying, always shifting no matter how still they seemed from a distance.

Was this... "Kaiba?"

The bricks of the Millennium Puzzle came to life as I said that, pulling away from me and retracting in on each other to widen the opening. My hand instantly slipped from the gold rope and I fell through into Kaiba's space as the stones I was standing on pulled away from my feet and my footing fell out from under me.

"Whaaaaaa!" I tumbled forward to free-fall through the cosmos... for about ten seconds and then smacked into something I couldn't see with a hollow thump, like a goldfish bumping into the edge of its fishbowl.

"Uhhhhh." I peeled my cheek back from the barrier it was smushed up against and sat up. The darkness of space still stretched on in every direction but now my own reflection stared back at me like a mirror. What was this? Glass? I reached out to touch the barrier. It was solid and cool against my fingers, they even smudged it a bit as I pulled away. Was this a cinema theater, or a very large computer screen?

"Hello." A familiar voice greeted me mildly from somewhere above my head.

From the bottom of this glass bubble I glanced upwards to see Atem's unmistakable silhouette perched upon a platform suspended above me.

"Atem?" The room was so dark I could barely see him through all the shadows. I guess he'd heard me after all, but how could he be fighting Teleia and be in here at the same time? He offered a hand and with a burst of strength he pulled me up onto the platform with him. As I found my feet I realized I was wrong, sort of.

I stared into my own face, or his version of my face. It was Atem as he'd been as the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle.

"Yami?" It felt good to say that name again out loud.

He hummed. "In a manner of speaking" he then replied amicably. His skin was pale and eyes were as purple as mine, just like they'd been when he'd been in control of my body. They looked over me warmly despite my slip up.

"Sorry! I thought -" I cut myself off. I didn't really know what I thought. "It doesn't matter." I finished with a smile and pulled him into a hug. I had to lift my arms to curl them around his shoulders. He wore clothing I didn't recognize but sure looked like something that would have come out of our shared dueling wardrobe.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you." He teased with a confident smirk.

"Why do you look this way? What happened to your stuff?" I questioned, perking an eyebrow as I did. "Not that it isn't great to see you like this again." I quickly added for good measure. Yami pulled out of my hug, blinked and looked away, lost in thought for a moment.

"It's complicated." He eventually replied.

"Okay." I nodded back. His expression warmed at that. With a flourish of his jacket he turned and walked away down the platform and into the bowels of the room. For the first time I got a good look at the room. "Where are we?" It looked like a laboratory… in space. It was bathed in cyan light like the set of a big budget sci-fi movie, and, "Wait, is that -" My eyes landed on the Millennium Puzzle, slowly being slotted together by a robotic limb in a giant test tube at the end of the walkway. That wasn't right. I frowned. "What's going on?" I asked Yami, or Atem, or whoever this was. I tried to keep the suspicion from my voice by I'm not sure it worked.

He turned back to me. "We're in Kaiba's Soul Room."

That's where we were? I glanced around the lab again, the clinical and spartan surroundings suddenly seeming a lot more revealing than they really were.

"Though the facility it takes the form of is part of the KaibaCorp space station." Yami added, the blue light of the room making his pale skin appear alien and ghostly. Space station? Oh yeah, that had been all over the news a few months back. "I see." And I really did. The hallmarks of Kaiba's design preferences were everywhere. Clean lines and harsh angles and everything bathed in unnatural light. Even by the standards of current technology it was overly futuristic. How was it that Kaiba could be the reincarnation of someone born thousands of years in the past and also seem like he'd been born too soon in the present? Just looking at all of this stuff made my head spin.

"I exist here as a holographic dueling simulation of the Pharaoh." He continued and then paused, the pensive gaze never leaving his face.

"A hologram?" I was speaking to a hologram? But he was so convincing. "But you seem so real?" Was he a version of Yami that Kaiba had created? Just the scope of it was mind-boggling, for Kaiba to have remade him with such pin-point precision.

"I know", he replied smoothly. "Kaiba has spent a lot of time perfecting me." He boasted, proudly. That seemed a little weird. Despite being 'perfected' Yami was slightly taller than me which was confusing since Atem himself was now a bit shorter. Maybe Kaiba saw him as being a little larger than life. "Although he only bothered to upgrade me to his Solid Vision technology after the true version of me achieved his destiny." He explained, his smirk of amusement faded to a more natural expression.

I frowned at that. Once you got passed the fact that this was an artificial intelligence it seemed cruel to keep a version of Yami trapped here like this, especially when he was clearly sentient. "Are you okay with being a hologram?" I questioned, slowly.

Yami hummed to himself and went back to staring out of the window at the stars. "To be a hologram projected by Kaiba's computers isn't much different to being a spirit hosted by the Millennium Puzzle." He noted mildly and I frowned at his tone. It sounded so distant. He turned back to me with a small smile. "Though I have missed you, partner."

"Yeah." I agreed with a nod. "I miss you too, so much."

The was a contemplative pause as Yami debated asking something. I let him work through his thoughts as he figured out what it was he wanted to know. "What's 'Atem' like?" Yami eventually asked, his purple eyes watching me with an intensity that felt faintly probing.

"He's-" I paused and frowned. Memories made up who a person was and I hadn't had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Atem again since he regained them. It felt weird to confess even to myself that I didn't really know one of my best friends. Yami watched me closely, waiting patiently for my answer. I had to try my best. How to describe Atem? He was 'different', but still confident and kind – or that was the impression I got anyway. "-nice." Was the word that emerged from my mouth, lamely.

Yami watched me blankly for a long moment and then smirked, leaning back a little to push out his hips and relaxed into our dueling pose – a pose I missed.

"Good." He concluded, his stare becoming sphinx-like and utterly unreadable.

"How is it that you came to her-" Yami cut off his own sentence abruptly and stood very still, tilting his head slightly like he was listening for something.

"What's wrong?" I couldn't hear anything.

"I don't know." He replied in a hushed tone. "There it is again." He remarked with a frown.

A hoarse, barking cough muffled by a side door drew his gaze away and my eyes followed his as they trailed toward the button to open it.

I followed him, glancing over his shoulder as he peered through the doorway into a long and very very dark corridor. The hallway seemed nearly endless. I could make out doors lining it as far as my eyes could see. Most were closed, but a handful of them weren't.

This corridor wasn't something of Kaiba's creation. That's the feeling I got. I didn't know anything about space stations or engineering, but it seemed unlikely a long unlit corridor was part of its intended design. In fact something was off about all these doors.

Several were open but they were all damaged. Two looked like the doors had almost been ripped off of their hinges, and a third looked like something had clawed it apart from the inside. One of the ones closest to us was just very slightly ajar but a cold odorless chill came from it, breezing through the hallway.

"These doors should all be closed." Yami noted, a bit of anger heating his voice. "Anubis must have disturbed whatever was inside of them to fuel his powers when he emerged in Kaiba's body."

I wasn't sure exactly what Yami was referring to but I didn't doubt him for a second.

The hacking cough sounded again and it was louder this time, sounding all scratchy like it was coming out of a sore throat. The noise came from the room closest to us, the one with the chill and the ajar door. It was just a few steps down the corridor.

"What do you think is in there?" I wondered

Yami gritted his teeth. "Memories. Ones that breed dark emotions."

Dark emotions? "Like anger, and hate?" I questioned. We both knew Kaiba had a problem with those sort of emotions. In fact the whole world pretty much knew Kaiba has issues with them, you only needed to watch a recording of any one of his duels to see that. Yami nodded to me, looking intense and focused. "The very same." He confirmed. "Others too. Regret, shame, fear and desperation, even grief if left to fester-" he looked more and more unhappy as he listed them off.

"That's not good." I noted.

"No, it isn't." Yami agreed tonelessly. "And I doubt leaving them open will do Kaiba any good." Yami observed as he paused at the doorway. He was hesitant, but it wasn't something anyone else would have picked up on. It was all in the way he shifted his weight and stared at nothing, focusing his eyes on a single point while listening intently. How had Kaiba known to program him to do that? Yami had never shown anything less than total confidence when they dueled – I got the impression he'd always been determined not to show any kind of weakness off to Kaiba. They had some kind of mutual understanding and respect, but one that had to be earned and carefully maintained.

I guess as part of that in the past when something was up with Kaiba Yami was always the first person to lead the charge in his defense, but something was holding him back this time. "You can't leave this room?" I guessed, watching him linger in the doorway.

"As a hologram projected by the technology in this room I can't wander any further." He admitted, "But the doors must be closed." He sounded so sure about it that it had to be important.

"No problem. I'll go take a look." I assured him. He watched wordlessly as I stepped into the corridor and toward the sound of the cough. "Thank you, partner. I'd appreciate that." He nodded and I nodded back.

I shivered after taking a few steps down the hallway. It sure was chilly. The cough came again like it was designed to guide me. It was wet and hacking. It sounded really bad.

With a light push the door to the room fully opened with a long creak of its rusty hinges. The handle itself felt a little loose in my palm as I gently pried it open just enough to poke my head through the threshold. If this was Kaiba's Soul Room who knew what was in here. I could be one creaky door away from being eaten by a Blue-Eyes.

Oh.

It wasn't that bad.

The room was easily identifiable as a dormitory, or something close. The rows and rows of thin metal bed frames made it obvious. Even though it was clearly the middle of the night in this room the moonlight through the windows was bright enough to see by. It looked like it was winter; snow was piling up outside and when I exhaled I could see my own breath. Most of the beds were occupied by a kid, deep asleep under a plain moss-colored comforter, but it was the bed at the end with two familiar faces that drew my attention.

It was the Kaiba brothers, but they were tiny. This was some sort of memory then?

Like all the other kids in the room Mokuba was deep asleep, but huddled up in a mountain blankets. He looked smaller and paler than I'd ever seen him before. He choked out another rough chesty cough as I spotted him, but didn't stir or wake up from it. He kept on sleeping. The same couldn't be said for his big brother.

Kaiba was awake – very visibly awake – lying next to his brother on the bed above the covers like a child-sized guard dog in a set of flannel pajamas that looked a little too short at the wrists and ankles. He watched Mokuba as his coughing fit passed. His big blue eyes almost shone in the moonlit room and they were filled with something Kaiba had long since learn to hide from his expression – real and obvious worry. He curled up a little tighter and shivered, his eyes never wavering from Mokuba's face even for a second, like he expected him to vanish into dust if he looked away.

The chill in the room was bad and the second set of sheets cocooning Mokuba like a human burrito quickly explained why the bed next to him seemed to have been stripped bare of bedding all the way down to the mattress.

With a cough so substantial it made Mokuba's body convulse a little he opened his eyes slowly and groggily, either used to it or too exhausted to react to his brother looming over him on his bed watching him sleep.

"Seto?" Mokuba croaked, barely audible.

Kaiba nodded at him, a small smile that looked like it was intended to be reassuring but fell short of being at all believable flickered across Kaiba's much rounded face.

"It's okay Mokie-" he replied, smoothing down a crease in the comforter and handing Mokuba a glass of water from a nearby night table. "-Drink this and then try to get back to sleep."

Mokuba bobbed his head sleepily, only half-awake at best. His little fingers sluggishly reached out to take the glass from his brother, Kaiba himself not letting go of the glass until he was sure his brother had a good hold of it. He slowly sipped it down, spilling a little as a cough ambushed him while drinking.

"That's great." Kaiba praised, taking the glass back from Mokuba once it was empty and replacing it on the bedside table. "Now go back to sleep." He quietly encouraged, his childish voice not only higher but also much softer in tone than the teenage Kaiba we'd come to know so well.

Mokuba burrowed back down into the hive of blankets and pillows. After a moment his breath evened out into sleep, though it was still raspy. Kaiba's false grin faded back into an expression of concern. He sighed, deeply, silently and then my worry shot up to match his as he covered his hands over his mouth to stifle a cough of his own, his shoulders jumping as he silently convulsed with the muffled cough.

Watching them made me anxious. This was a memory and there wasn't anything I could do, plus the Kaiba brothers clearly recovered from their respective illnesses. I didn't need to feel concerned but I still did. I really liked kids. I loved helping them pick out new toys and find cool new games in Grandpa's shop, it was the best part of the job. It was hard to watch them struggle and the brothers were both so small here.

Kaiba shivered a little and glanced towards the door I'd come from. There was an old radiator secured to the wall, inactive and from the look of it half-dismantled. That explained why it was so cold in here.

"It's you." Kaiba's young voice traveled the distance across the room without waking up a single other sleeping boy. Who was he talking to? I turned back to him and got caught in what would grow up to be his stare of assessment, though through a kid's eyes their shone an obvious anxiety and hope badly hidden behind fake indifference.

I looked left and then right. There was no one else here, so he must be talking to me. "You know me?" I questioned as pointed to myself. That seemed weird. Though this was a memory it was also a room in Kaiba's Soul Room – it looked like he was able to see me here, even if that deviated from the original memory.

"'Course I do. What da'you want?" Kaiba questioned, smartly. His tone was defensive and he clambered off the bed to stand in front of Mokuba as he slept, hiding him from sight. As he stood up he straightened his spine and crossed his arms to make himself appear as tall as possible… but he was still just a little kid. It was like he somehow already knew he'd grow up to be crazy tall and had started prepping his mannerisms in advance. I tried not to smile at just how unintimidating he was right now. At the moment he was about the same height as Mokuba had been in Duelist Kingdom – maybe a similar age too. He looked kinda cute, really. With puberty separating them the Kaiba brothers could hardly look more different, but the resemblance between Kaiba at this age and Mokuba as I remembered him was way more obvious.

His big eyes slowly narrowed at me as I guess I forgot to reply. "You better get out-" he warned "Or I'm gonna call the orderly." Despite the softly hissed threat instead of holding his ground and glaring at me, this younger Kaiba padded across the floor toward me, eyeing me closely with a bright curiosity. He circled me like a shark before pausing right in front of me a staring upward into my eyes with a badly hidden interest.

"What's up with your hair?" he demanded.

I had no idea what to say to that. With Kaiba it wasn't really an option to back down. I couldn't see that changing no matter what age he was. Confrontation wasn't something I enjoyed but I was the picture of confidence as I channeled Atem's weird ability to cut Kaiba back down to size. "What's up with yours?" I parried keeping a friendly tone of light challenge in my voice that I knew was sure to keep him interested.

"My hair's normal. Yours looks weird." He informed me matter-of-factly. He crossed his arms in a way that was all too familiar and then cocked his head to one side in a manner that wasn't.

"You some kinda punk?" he taunted with a little smirk. It vanished as he was abruptly jumped by a coughing fit of his own, his skinny body shaking as he tried to muffle the noise with his hands.

"Woah there, are you okay? I reached out a hand to steady him as the coughing fit passed, the little Kaiba looking much paler and suddenly so very tired. Little tears pricked at the corner of his eyes and he blinked them away. Poor little guy was totally exhausted.

"You should go back to bed." I told him as I patted his shoulder.

Kaiba glared at me defiantly and then his eyes softened to become hesitant instead of hardening to become outright rebellious, which was normal for his older self. "I need to watch over Mokie." He told me, breaking eye contact to look over his brother. "I promised." He added softly.

"But you can't do that if you get sick too." I reasoned, nodding to show I understood.

"But what if he gets even worse while I'm asleep!" Kaiba suddenly snapped in a flare of outright anger. "What if he chokes? Or he coughs himself to death?" His words sped up as they tumbled out of his mouth and he swallowed thickly, staring back down at Mokuba once more possessive and a little desperately. "What then, huh?"" his eyes landed back on me and his prickly words failed to hide the masked plea for reassurance, for an answer that would some make everything better.

"I can watch him for you." I told him. Kaiba looked at me like I'd grown a second head. "-Uh, if you'll allow me to, of course." I quickly added.

Kaiba's arms crossed a little tighter as he considered my offer, usually it looked standoffish, but at this age it looked like he was hugging himself. Tightly.

"Why would you do that?" he asked quietly, his large blue eyes peering up at me hesitantly from under his heavy bangs.

"Because we're friends." that answer came naturally without a second thought. We were friends - we really were. It was time for me to live up to that. I smiled at Kaiba's young face, hoping he'd pick up on the honesty of those words – the genuine belief that lay behind them.

"No we aren't" He argued.

"Yes we are." I replied, trying not to laugh at how bolshie he was. I'd seen the Kaiba brothers as kids before in Noa Kaiba's virtual world, but talking to them was really different from just watching memories.

"Just saying something doesn't make it true." He insisted and frowned at me.

"Well, you're right about that." I agreed, not quite sure what to do. It looked like even at this age Kaiba already had a stubborn streak. Atem would have known what to say to prove that I really meant it. Oh, that was it. "Let me do this for you and it'll prove that we're friends." I reasoned. He watched me for a long moment, eyes darting around for a trace of a lie in my expression.

"Whatever." He settled upon with heavily feigned reluctance. I nodded, grinning at how much more reasonable Kaiba seemed to be as a little boy than as a teenager.

He trotted back to Mokuba's bed and peeled back the comforters. Looks like sharing a bed was something the brothers did routinely. Mokuba instinctively shifted over a little to make space as Kaiba nudged at him, the older brother curling up a little around Mokuba's as he unconsciously nuzzled against him. Even though they looked pretty settled Kaiba's alert blue eyes didn't waver from me so I sat down at the end of the bed where he could keep an eye on me without hurting his neck. I sat still and watched the snow fall through the window as even Kaiba eventually closed his eyes when I did nothing else interesting. Even Mokuba coughing in his ear and sniffling barely provoking a response as he dozed on the cusp of consciousness.

"Y'cn go now." he muttered into his pillow, barely awake from the sound of it. "N'shut the door behind you." he slurred.

"Okay." I nodded and then felt silly because there was no way he could see that with his eyes closed. Quietly I padded back to the door, pulling it closed behind me when a softly spoken vow fell tiredly from his lips.

"M'gonna get us outta here. I just gotta."

The door clicked shut.


	18. Chapter 18

**Kaiba**

One of the two cards Teleia had set flipped itself to reveal Soul Absorption and with his typical pomp and flare Atem took care of it within less than a minute. It was actually amusing to watch just how effortlessly he foiled every strategy set against him, when they weren't mine that is.

The whole play was one big anticlimax; completely pathetic despite the impressive death wish her eyes had been beaming onto us since Atem whisked Yugi away. Hell, he hadn't even blinked as Atem corralled him into the Puzzle like an overly trusting little idiot. I'd die before I willingly climbed into that oversized USB stick.

"No! No! No!" Teleia screamed, slapping her hands against the invisible barrier made by Spellbinding Circle like a toddler throwing a tantrum until she wore herself out and had to quit.

Atem totally ignored the moronic display. He closed his eyes serenely and cradled the Puzzle in his hand. He muttered some useless thanks to it and then let go. It swung free around his neck as he opened his eyes back up and smirked passed me, straight to Teleia, mocking her with his smuggest expression.

He approached her at a saunter, like he didn't have a care in the world. His fingers flickered to his Duel Disk calmly, plucking free Soul Taker and nimbly twisting it between his digits to reveal it to Teleia and me like a showboating amateur magician at a birthday party.

"Are you ready to be removed from my world?" He taunted in a tone of voice that was rich and dark, like auditory coffee. I huffed. I'd always known the Pharaoh had a sadistic streak; I'd been on the business end of it enough times. He liked to flaunt his wins and kick his opponents when they were down just a little bit more than could typically be considered 'sporting'. Interesting that his vacation in fantasyland and 'new' memories hadn't eliminated that dark little blip. That was fine by me. It might actually be fun to watch now that he was aiming his sadism against someone else.

Teleia sneered back at him and pursed her lips thoughtfully. Abruptly she violently bobbed her head back and forth like a supersized pigeon.

"Huk huuuk huuuuuk."

The gross lurching gurgle of someone trying to force themselves to regurgitate something from the bottom of their gut made my skin crawl. Her cheeks bulged outwards as her mouth filled with something I really didn't want to think about.

Atem didn't look at all bothered by the sick display. He just stood there and waited, content to just watch the fucking festivities.

With a final retch Teleia spat out a bubble of thick black goo. Despite her obvious attempt to projectile vomit it free from Spellbinding Circle it collided against the barrier with a slick slimy splat.

Urg. Disgusting.

My stomach turned as the gunk churned and reshaped itself into a miniature version of Sphinx Teleia's head that silently screeched at us in raw fury before retreating back into Teleia's throat.

What a weak escape attempt. So she sensed it too. This was where she got off; Atem was going to guarantee it.

"A good try, Teleia." Atem pronounced with that arrogant amusement he should trademark. "But by the terms of this duel fleeing Isis's body is impossible without an appropriate spell card." He effortlessly twirled his Soul Taker magic card in-between his fingers for dramatic effect before adding "Fortunately, _we_ have one to exorcise your vile presence once and for all."

'_We_'. Tch. Spare me.

Of course now that Yugi was on the scene no one else mattered. Big surprise.

Atem had already reverted back to referring to the two of them like they were 'partners', or whatever cloying term he and Yugi used for each other. I didn't know what they'd been doing before I got out of the Jar but Atem now looked amped up. His eyes flashed like sirens and all the cuts, bruises and crumpled clothing fell away as insignificant in that signature stance of his that practically oozed confidence. How just Yugi's presence alone could have that effect I had no idea, but apparently Atem was now determined to put on a show just for him - and he wasn't even here to see it anymore.

Whatever. Let Yugi soak up all of Atem's attention like a human sponge. At least now I wouldn't have to listen to shoot off his big mouth. I snorted and turned my focus back to Teleia.

"Binding this world's magic to your trinkets for the Master's game was indeed cunning..." She cooed, the badly feigned calmness of her voice completely contradicting her murderous expression.

She was hunched over in the dirt on her hands and knees like a rabid animal and finally remotely interesting to watch. Seeing her being forced to grovel like that was appealing on its own, but it was her eyes that finally made her worth my time. They'd denatured into something darker. Something fiercer. Something I recognized.

I'd seen them in the mirror every morning I'd woken up under Gozaburo's heel. I'd seen them on the faces of people who thought they stood a chance against me only to feel the gravity of that ridiculous assumption as I crushed them beneath my boot. They were the eyes of someone who knew they were beat and had nothing left to throw at their enemy except every last damn speck of their hatred. I knew exactly what was coming next; somehow, someway she was going to try to take us down with her.

It's exactly what I would have done in her position.

She didn't keep me in suspense.

"...But so easily can such trappings be ripped away!" She yowled.

Her monster copied.

"Skraaaawwwww!"

Bird of Roses's beak split open with a shriek and an audible clacking noise.

Were my new eyes not tuned to movement so precisely I would have missed what happened next. It would have been too quick. My vision sharpened at the motion as the Bird's vine-like tongue shot out of its throat and cut through the air. I tried to snap at it as it launched towards Atem and must have missed. This body was making it hard to react with anything like my usual accuracy.

"Dodge it!" I barked back at him. What a waste of my breath that was.

Atem wasn't phased by any part of this situation. His eyes narrowed in focus as he reached forward and actually caught the fucking thing out of the air; pinching it hard in his hand and then yanking back on it as it thrashed in his hand. Dexterous bastard.

Bird of the Roses squawked loudly as it lost its tongue in Atem's grip. The muscle tone in Atem's body raised to the surface of his skin as he braced against the monster with all of his strength. It only managed to drag him forward an inch until he tightened up his footing and planted himself in the ground like a stunted mutant palm tree.

"Give up, Teleia. This is over." He lectured, his expression was somewhere straddling the line between unimpressed and bemused. Like this was his everyday nine to five and he hadn't had a raise in years.

Bird of the Roses's flapped its wings and flailed pathetically. Atem smirked at that. Clearly he thought he had this all in hand – figuratively and literally. He didn't. It wasn't the stupid bird that he needed to watch out for. I looked passed the writhing monster to its rabid bitch of a mistress. She was now mirroring Atem's victorious smirk with one of her own.

Here it came. Whatever she was going to try – this was it. She licked her lips as a trickle of her own sweat slipped over them and her eyes darted to her monster's tongue.

Atem paid it zero attention as the appendage coiled around his arm, far too busy playing cowboy as he braced against the Bird. He wasn't gonna be able to ignore for long. The tongue was tightening like a snake, the barbs pricking his dark skin to draw tiny drops of bright blood to the surface of his forearm as it slowly inched down to his wrist.

"Ghrn?" _"Now what?" _I grunted, clenching my claws.

Shit.

I knew what her next play was going to be!

The thorny appendage slithered closer and closer to the underside of Atem's Duel Disk – creeping towards where the latch to unfasten it was.

"Your Duel Disk!" I snapped at Atem, the urgent hissing noise going totally ignored.

Taking away our only means to win the game was playing as dirty as it came and it was exactly what I would have done in her position.

Atem didn't even look my way, busy still grinning to himself and too enraptured in his own superiority as he wrangled the bird like he was at a damn rodeo.

Fine!

If I wanted the job done I'd have to do it myself, just like always. No big surprise there.

I forced my injured arm down onto the earth, feeling in shift beneath my talons and pile in the palm of these semi-functional dragon hands as I flexed my claws. They seemed sharp enough; and if they couldn't get the job done there was always my fangs. These jaws worked just fine and having a head on her shoulders probably factored into her plot. Being turned into a useless crippled dragon finally seemed to have a fucking benefit!

"Guuurooooooar!" With a sharp intake of breath I gnashed my teeth together, coiled my tail and lunged for Teleia.

"Kaiba, stop!" Atem's startling shout threw my attack off and my front leg buckled. Of course, now he was paying attention to me.

"Grrrrrrr." I snarled back at him, lifting my head up from the ground to throw the darkest glare at him I could fucking manage.

"What are you thinking?" Atem angrily demanded, like I was the asshole just face-planting into the floor for kicks because it was such a great way to pass the time. He returned my vicious leer with a glare of his own. "Don't forget that injuring Teleia will harm Isis!"

I hadn't forgotten, I just didn't care. Fake-Ishizu and all of his dreamworld weren't fucking real and he couldn't possibly be stupid enough to not realize what Teleia was planning.

"She's trying to take your Duel Disk!" My voice came out as another pissed off roar. I writhed on the floor like a useless worm, trying to use whatever leverage my tail and other wing could give me to push myself back onto the three legs I had left to work with.

He frowned at me, totally distracted from the Bird as his eyes climbed all over me, trying to figure me out.

"Garooooou!" _"Pay attention!" _to the Bird, not me!

If it took his fucking Duel Disk we'd both be finished!

"Just stay still." He concluded, not getting the message at all. Of all the moments to drop his irritating ability to figure me out this was the worst one he could have damn well picked. "I'll end this and return you to normal." He told me with that supreme surety that never failed to grate on my nerves.

Not if he didn't have a Duel Disk he wouldn't, and I couldn't go back home like this!

With an audible 'snap' the Duel Disk on Atem's arm was unlatched. "What?" Atem barked in surprise and turned his head back to his arm in shock, only now realizing what was about to happen. Stupid idiot!

The tongue snatched up the unclasped device like a constrictor and lashed backwards, the tug pulling Atem off balance and back toward the monster as it recoiled into its mouth. The device disappeared in a single gulp, moving down the Bird's long green neck and into the its body as one large angular lump.

It fucking just ate the Duel Disk.

"Ahahahaha!" Teleia cackled, "Now this is done, little Pharaoh!"

I didn't matter! I'd tear her monster apart and get it back and then I'd make her pay for that!

"No!" Atem shouted.

Teleia howled with laughter. Even her damn Bird joined in on the fun with a high pitched screech of amusement.

She paused for breath, her lips cutting into a grin as sharp as a scalpel. "My my, just how well will you fair against my magnificent Master without all your servants and spells at your beck and call?" She mocked.

I grit my teeth; the inhuman fangs I was now stuck with pricking into my gums until I slackened my jaw slightly.

"-And behold, my parting gift!" Teleia declared, her voice overpowering his and stretching her fingers out to brush against the boundary of her makeshift Spellbinding Circle prison to activate her other card. It sent a spray of sludge flying from its edges as it flipped up.

Fissure's card art was unmistakable. A sinewy hand grasping desperately upward towards the sky as the ground cracked open to drag them back down.

She brayed with laughter as the card took effect. Fissure's effect pounded the ground around us, shredding the rocks under our feet like broken glass. Jagged shards of stone splintered upwards from the force as the terrain was ripped apart.

"It'll be such a shame to crush your lovely bodies. Such a true shame-" Her expression only got crazier with each word. "- But it is as you say, little Pharaoh-" With a quake that almost sent me back to the floor and a low deafening crunch the ground carved apart. Spellbinding Circle shattered into gold light as the broken ground beneath it compromised the circumference of it's outer ring. "-The game must be played." She snickered, rising up from the floor to stand as subterranean cracks lanced forward toward us.

I reared up onto my hind legs and tried to side step the crevice as it opened up at my feet. It was either nonsensical instinct or reflex, but I opened up the wings on my back again without a second thought and pumped them to get the hell airborne as quickly as possible. The grinding snap of my dislocated shoulder didn't let that happen and slapped me back down with a stab of pain just to make sure I didn't try flying off again. There wasn't enough time anyway. A massive chunk of earth split off, snapping upwards over our heads to crush Atem down like a gnat. And he just stood there. I slammed my front claws into it, trying to wrestle the slab back down and gouging deep scars into the rubble as it rose up all around me.

Snarling at Atem to "move!" did nothing.

He didn't even react; still frozen staring at the spot on his arm that had until a few seconds ago been covered by his Duel Disk.

"Yugi..." He muttered to himself, lost in thought, or shock, it was hard to tell. "Without the Duel Disk I can't call the spell to release him." He glanced up at me wide-eyed, like somehow the ground crumbling around him was of no importance in the face of Yugi's situation.

Yeah, no kidding. And I was a dragon by the way. Thanks for the consideration, Pharaoh.

"He'll be fine!" I bit back. I'd bet he was a lot better off than us right now!

As though to prove my point a void yawned open under my claws. My elongated body lurched downwards into nothing and my stomach spun out from the sudden shift in gravity as the stone beneath my back legs crumbled and gave out.

Damn it!

I smacked into a rocky ledge as I free fell down the fissure. It didn't hurt as much as it should of. My scales must have absorbed the shock of the impact.

Rocks as sharp as knives rained over me, easily scattering across the thick scales covering my body but sharp enough to slice across the thinner leather of my wing and stab at my eyes. Without hands or arms to shield them I craned my neck backward and buried it behind my good wing which smoothly moved forward like a protective armor plating.

"Grrr-oof!"

Atem fell in on top of me, making me bark at the unexpected weight as he collided onto my back like a hobbit-sized bag of sand and knocking the air out of my lungs. With a snarl I threw him off of me.

His descent brought a new cascade of rocks and dirt down into... wherever the hell we'd fallen into. A cavern? Some sort of cave network? Earth and grit poured into the fissure to bury us.

"Gh!"

I heard Atem's muted grunt of discomfort from somewhere off to my side and blindly groped around the approximate space with my damaged wing, feeling the ends of his stupid hair and the sharp angle of one of his shoulders.

"Grrrrf!"

The dislocated wing was such a damn pain! I ignored it and brushed Atem back toward me. I didn't exactly want him close, but I didn't want him crushed either - not unless it was by me and my deck. My wing shoved him over until he thumped against my chest, then I slid it back over my head and his whole body to blot out the debris.

I glared him down beneath the umbrella of my wing. I'd taken the brunt of the fall but it looked like he hadn't exactly escaped the rocks either. Road rash had scuffed up one of elbows and a jagged edge of something had cut a small slice into his cheek. It bled a little. The color matched his eyes - though they seemed weirdly glassy. He looked out of it. He stared back at me but he didn't look as focused as usual. He better not have smacked his head on the way down.

"Kaiba..." he started, trailing off without adding anything useful beyond that. I sneered at him. He better not get used to this nonsense. I was Seto fucking Kaiba, not his caring-servant pet-dragon meat-shield.

"Rrrrroooh!" A sort of ridiculous sounding reptilian whine jumped out of my throat before I could stop it as an especially heavy chunk of stone smacked against my left side.

I groaned, the sound just coming out as a hiss as I raised up my left wing even higher like a blast door. I couldn't keep it still. The bones trembled with effort and sent jolts of pain zapping down it back into my shoulder. Atem watched it shudder and twitch as I strained to stop it and glanced back to my face with concern. I kept my teeth gritted and growled at him, just to make sure he remembered who the fuck he was dealing with.

"It's almost over." He assured me.

I already knew that! The light above us dimmed as the fissure filled, smaller lumps of grit and chunks carved lose by the card crumbling against my scales. It was a relief to lower my wing until it limply slumped against the ground. That hurt, but the brief flash of pain was so much better than the low key agony of keeping it raised up.

Sighing would be too obvious, so I exhaled through my nostrils. The air down here was so hot it wasn't going to be noticeable; this place was like a fucking sauna. It was so dry I could see it Atem's sweat evaporate as it formed.

"Are you alright-" He questioned softly, like he actually cared,

"-Yugi?"

But apparently not about me. That figured.

He frowned as he held up the Puzzle in both hands, closing his eyes to listen deeply for some nonsensical reply from his precious host.

"I can't hear him." He muttered, loud enough for me to hear. As if I cared. Yugi was probably safe and sound lounging around in the Puzzle - unlike the two of us who had just been buried alive.

"He'll be fine, idiot." Great job assessing everyone who was actually present and accounted for. My unintelligible snarl made him pause and actually pay me some attention, though the dumb look on his face made it clear he had no idea what I was trying to say. He gave up on figuring me out and give the Puzzle a final once over just to make sure Yugi wasn't going to magically appear – again.

With a frown he finally let it go. Instead he bent the leather cover of my wing back a bit and took a look at the cave ceiling, just to check it was still raining rocks.

As the one they were raining on I could tell him categorically 'yes, it was' - or I would of if I still had my normal vocal cords. I kept trying not to wince as the remaining pebbles smacked against my bad wing.

"I can help you with your shoulder." Atem offered, staring at it like he doubted the craftsmanship and expected it to give way at any second.

"Grrmph." _"No way."_ I tried scowling at him to show exactly how little I wanted his 'help' but doubted the expression would take on my current face so bared my teeth at him too.

As if I'd ever allow that. I didn't need anyone else's help.

"Unless you're too afraid to let me?" Atem taunted; clearly trying to play me.

Still no way.

I'd pop it back in once I was human again and right up until that very second I didn't want anyone man-handling any part of my shoulder. Excessive man-handling was the original cause of the injury, so it was logical not to want people poking around at it. Hell, letting someone whose cultural breakthroughs in medicine probably still involved leeches and blood letting mess with the joint was definitely not happening.

That was sensible, not cowardice.

I didn't know if he could sense his little attempt at baiting me had fallen flat or had just lost interest, but he dismissed the idea just as quickly as he'd proposed it and leaned back against my scales while rubbing at his forehead.

The possibility of him having a head injury was becoming more and more likely by the damn minute.

**Atem**

Kaiba's body remained curled around mine like a great snake as the last small showers of stone tumbled over us. The close proximity that had seemed to be a source of such bother for him earlier was now going completely ignored.

The heat of this place and the sweat streaming from my forehead made me feel as though I was melting away, yet Kaiba's scales were cool and smooth. It was difficult to will myself away from them, but I could hardly stay pressed up against him any longer. I was surprised he hadn't already attempted to throw me off of him again. Wrapped around me as he was I watched the end of his tail flick in irritation out of the corner of my eyes as I held the Puzzle in my hands. The warm, familiar feeling of Yugi's spirit was not forthcoming.

My bones ached but I paid them no mind as I slowly found my feet and stepped out of the barrier Kaiba's encircling wings had made. Steeped in the cavern's deep shadows and hidden from sight the short peak of a fallen rock caught my heel.

Kaiba barked hoarsely as I tripped backward and collided with him for the second time in as many minutes. I fell on him as he had been trying to stand and with a skitter of claws against rock we both collapsed once more to the floor. A thick plume of dust and dry soil rushed up and made us cough in tandem; Kaiba's draconic throat creating a violent hacking noise.

How strange. Grace was not something I usually lacked, especially in dark places.

"Be careful. The ground is uneven." I muttered, though I doubted Kaiba heard it and that suited my purposes just as well.

I studied our point of ingress as he cleared his throat. The sunlight of the world above hung over our heads like a distant star. It was a long drop; we had been lucky to survive it. A slender beam of light filtered through the collapsed rocks that now made up the ceiling of the cavern we found ourselves it. The breech was barely the size of my hand - certainly not enough to escape through - but enough to provide some much welcome illumination, no matter how sparse.

The sunbeam crawled across my arm, shining in the trickle of blood that dripped from my cheek onto my forearm. I frowned at the glossy droplets as they fused with the collection of welts left behind by Bird of the Roses' tongue. It was not the new addition of the blood that stopped me short - rather it was the lack of the device that had taken that place but only a few minutes ago.

"We need to leave this place." I noted, keeping my voice level with a calmness that was far from real. Teleia was clearly capable of covering great distances at speed. We needed a plan of escape to have any hope of recovering my Duel Disk, and quickly.

How could I have allowed its theft to happen?

Without it Yugi was now a prisoner of the Puzzle. He had trusted me unconditionally and I had unwittingly guided him into his own incarceration. I needed to assure him this was only temporary; that I would not leave him to what would had been my fate had he and our friends not helped deliver me to my afterlife.

My fingers found the familiar angles of the Millennium Puzzle by memory alone. I closed my eyes to focus upon it, the smooth surface of the Item comfortable and solid in my hands. I frowned, feeling a heavy bead of sweat race down the channel my brows formed as they knitted together in determination.

"Yugi... " With practiced ease I willed my thoughts inside of the Puzzle. "Are you here?" I asked.

There was a snarl and a grumble from Kaiba's chest. I refused to let is distract me from my task.

"Speak to me." I pressed.

"Graaahou gnh."

Unlike Kaiba the Puzzle remained silent.

"Can you hear me?"

I flooded the Item with my senses, searching deeply, listening so very carefully for an echo of his spirit or the sound his voice until -

"-Grrrrhn nnr aroou."

Kaiba's meaningless growling snapped the thin thread of my concentration.

I rounded on him sharply, feeling my temper rear up and assert itself like a wild horse. "Will you cease your perpetual growling!" I ordered him, firmly, tightly. I tried to explain but didn't trust my words - they came out short and clipped. "Yugi is missing and we need a retrieve my Duel Disk, yet I can hardly hear myself think over your unrelenting noise."

Kaiba scoffed, forcefully, his expression darkening and becoming harsh.

"Grrrrhngr!"

He leered at me - narrowed blue eyes cooling to become glacial and defiant. They trailed my own to my arm and hissed pointedly at the place my Duel Disk no longer adorned as I wearily met his accusatory glare.

"You blame me for this?" I realized. An incredulous anger rushed through my veins.

A short, sharp bark was his swift reply and then Kaiba seemed to scowl to himself as he recalled his words were far from human. He fell back on more draconic methods of communication with a natural ease as he curled his lip at me in affirmation and snapped his jaws in my direction with a gnarr of varying tones that no doubt would translate into some suitably acidic retort.

I bristled at his brazenness and pulled a card from his proverbial deck.

"'Spare me', as you would say." I replied, tilting my chin upward to meet his eyes as they glared venomously at me from atop the column of his long white neck. His lack of care filled me with ire. He was hardly a blameless victim here. Yes, he may be a dragon temporarily - a powerful creature that he had long coveted with an almost fanatical appreciation no less- but Yugi's situation was not so similarly attuned in his favor!

"You may be a dragon for a little longer but what of Yugi? His soul is now trapped!" I seethed, my sudden increase in volume being answered by a rebellious snarl before my sentence could complete.

Even stripped of its powers the Millennium Puzzle was still a labyrinthine maze that still held many dangers; a near infinite abyss of twists and secrets. I would not wish the fate of being sealed within it on anyone ever again, let alone Yugi. The very thought sent an feverish shiver down the length of my spine.

Kaiba continued to growl at me; the sound as deep and threatening as encroaching thunder and much like a steadily nearing storm, growing in volume and ferocity. The sound echoed between my ears, stirring up the low hum of the headache I had been nursing since the lake and agitating it with grim determination. I didn't want to contend with his rotten temper, but equally would not allow his belligerence to go unchallenged.

"And what of your own actions?" I countered. It was from the corner of my eye I had witnessed him lunge for Teleia - violent intent gleaming in his eyes like sunlight reflected on a blade. "Was it your intention to bite Isis's body apart in your bid for victory?" I interrogated, not caring to sheath the anger in my tone. Kaiba squared his shoulders - or tried to - as though he were still a man preparing for a fight and stood up as tall as the limitation of the cave's ceiling would allow to glower down over me. Aggression and outrage made his reptilian features feral and pinched. "Perhaps if you had spent less time distracting me I would have noticed her plan sooner." I concluded with finality.

Kaiba roared back with such intensity that the burst of breath blew free the hair that my sweat had slicked to the sides of my face. What had been a slowly building rage suddenly erupted with volcanic intensity. His roar was becoming familiar to me, yet as the sound of his fury crescendo-ed a new noise, a sharp secondary buzz, joined together in unison with his bellowing howl. A small pocket of blinding light swelled at the back of his wide open maw.

"Pyzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt!"

I barely found the time to dodge out of the way as a blast of white lightning rushed passed my body.

"Hngh!"

The abrupt evasion saved me from the potentially lethal attack, but was not without its own punishment. My sight blackened at the edges as I winced in pain. I clutched tightly to the sash binding my side as a new wave of warm and blood rushed to the surface of the fabric. The wound burned anew like a hastily kindled flame and seared at my side as though I had been branded by it. It wasn't healing at all.

Despite our obviously mutual frustration with each other both Kaiba and I fell silent and stilled as an ominous sound rumbled above our heads.

Several rocks fell free from the cave's ceiling and with a tense lungful of breath I braced for the worst, throwing my arm across my face to protect my eyes. I didn't dare to breathe again until the tumbling of stone eased into a shower of pebbles and then, mercifully, mere grit.

"Control yourself!" I thundered to Kaiba, the words rushing free from my mouth with a staggered exhalation of breath.

Even transposed upon his draconic features his expression was as human as ever. The blank look of surprise that graced his face as he surveilled the impact of his apparently accidental blast was quickly replaced as he recovered his usual scornful defiance. With a rebellious snarl he snatched his head away to glare off in the opposite direction to the one I currently occupied, seemingly only bothering to reign in his temper now that it could prompt a cave in.

"Be more mindful of our surroundings." I pressed, though this time I was stubbornly ignored.

Fine. If Kaiba was so content to sulk then I would let him. It gave me time to search for Yugi once more. Without his petulant snarling undoing my concentration and unraveling my focus perhaps this time I would finally find him.

"Partner?" I called out into the Puzzle's darkest reaches; my need to hear him becoming only more pronounced for each second I failed to do so.

The answer I hoped didn't come. The projection of Yugi's thoughts didn't echo back to answer me in kind, but instead where my Partner's phantasmal presence should be there was only nothing. I could no longer feel his spirit as I had easily done in the moments after guiding him inside of the Item. The silence, the lack of him, it was foreboding.

An ill-feeling overtook me.

When I had dwelt within it as the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle focusing so keenly in on the Item had once been routine - the treasure a willing conduit for my disembodied soul. Now I could scarcely stand to probe the very shallowest of its depths for even this meager length of time. Where once I had known sanctuary there was only a deep dread. A tight smothering darkness creeping in at the edges to drink all the air and life from my body.

I let go of the Puzzle hastily, as though it had scalded me. It caught on the cord around my neck and pendulously swung back and forth as my vision swam.

The cavern seemed to be shrinking, the cave narrowing all around. An oppressive heat lingered thick in these depths, enough to make me feel near lightheaded. Ordinarily such places promised the relief of shade from the desert sun and made for cool respites, yet instead it seemed the warmth was as thoroughly trapped in here as we ourselves now were.

Kaiba made for a good distraction; twisting his neck around to observe our surroundings while irritably flicking his tail like a hungry lion held at bay on the end of a chain.

It seemed he was not so similarly afflicted by the heat.

Instead he busied himself with an obvious dedication to mastering the newest weapon at his disposal. He practiced lighting a blast in his throat and then swallowing it back down before it could escape outward to bury us both. Each repetition filled the cavern with the fleeting glow of white light and cast deep shadows against the cave wall that danced within the black silhouette of his fangs. That was not all that the outline of his body made clear in the darkness. His left wing was held at a strange angle and now very clearly crooked in comparison to the other. He flinched each time it accidentally buffeted against the cavern floor before jerking it back to his side. It was a painful spectacle to watch.

With Yugi absent there was little more I could do to remedy his situation- yet Kaiba's I could still help, if the oaf would allow it.

"Stay still." I bid him - utterly unsurprised when he did little more than turn his muzzle in my direction to glower at me. I marched to his side, stepping over the cavern's rough terrain to do so with discomfort as each uneven rise and fall of the earth sent pricks of hot pain through the wound in my side.

Kaiba glared as I neared his shoulder, apparently already identifying it as my target. With a hiss of warning he subtly angled the wing away from me. He flinched as he did so, though he tried hiding the reaction behind an impudent toss of his head.

"Let me see." I would give him little choice in the matter. Shielding us from the rocks had clearly made the injury worse.

"Grrrrrrrrr." He thrashed his tail back and forth as though it were a whip, coiling it as he did so.

My fingers extended toward the problematic joint, inching through the air toward the slender bone that connected the shoulder of his wing to his withers. Unceremoniously and with no warning other than an irate snarl I abruptly found the world around me tilting to one side as an answering swipe from Kaiba's tail brought me to me knees. I barely heard my own shout as a ripple of agony rippled across my body from my injury.

I struggled back onto my feet as quickly as my muscles would permit. Everything ached.

Kaiba stared down at me, warily. His expression was indignant and yet still full of reproach.

"Will you mind your strength!?" I demanded, gasping for breath through the sudden frisson of pain that raced around my body from my injury's agitation. I hoped it was mere coincidence he had struck me in the side he already knew to be wounded, but doubted it. He had chosen the place he knew he could achieve the most damage with the most conservative amount of effort, no different from if we had been dueling.

With a pair of heavy thuds he thumped his tail against the ground as though daring me try again. Of course he wouldn't let me help him without a fight, despite the fact he had gone to some length to come to my aid only moments earlier.

I crossed my arms as I contemplated the stubborn fool's actions. He had protected me without hesitation; almost without even thinking. Was this because he, Seto Kaiba, had truly wanted to, or was it some compulsion inherited from my steadfast High Priest? The later seemed more likely than the former.

Either way Kaiba's vigilance was all that had saved us from accruing another death counter. In fact, he had reacted so quickly to Teleia's actions it was as though he had the foresight to predict them.

Ah.

The realization washed over me.

"You knew Teleia's plan."

I stole a glance toward him as he snorted to himself, a little of the fury leeching from his pose as the tight coil of his tail released and his shoulders hitched uneasily.

My thoughts drifted in lazy circles instead of marching with their usual precision and order; it was becoming difficult to concentrate and yet suddenly it seemed so obvious. "You were trying to warn me." I concluded, raising my voice only loud enough to close the distance between us. I listened closely for his answer. I needed to understand this.

"Grnh." Came his prickly reply, but beneath the incomprehensible sound there was a tone I recognized. I supposed it was a sort of insult of affirmation; something akin to "Duh" or perhaps calling me an "idiot."

All too quickly I comprehended the reason for his upset. He had been trying to warn me against Teleia's actions and I had all but accused him of sabotage.

"I see." I swiped at my forehead to wipe away the sweat gathering under my hairline.

A contemplative hush descended as we stared at each other. Or rather, I stared and was in turn glared at, no different from one of our duels. The reprieve was fortunate; despite Kaiba's accusatory leer it gave me time to gather my wits and form a strategy. After all, my next words would need to be perfect to restore what remained of our tentative equilibrium.

"I concede that I misjudged the situation." I settled upon, crossing my arms over my chest as I did so with the finality of a book cover closing.

Kaiba's attention was caught on the word 'concede', the sullen curl of his lip relaxing to sheath the threatening fangs he had been exposing like a jackal caught in a hunter's trap.

"Ghnnnn garooo" he huffed out still irritated but now haughty too, my mind supplementing a reply of "damn straight." over the top of his draconic grumblings. It might not have been a completely accurate guess, but by the bright semi-victorious shine that crept into the corners of his eyes I surmised it was close.

With a derisive snort and a rumble of something I suspect to be along the lines of 'took you long enough" he finally eased his glare and turned his head away. I nodded slowly, though he could no longer see me do so.

Understanding him wasn't as hard as I had first thought it to be now that I was truly paying attention. There was still meaning in the small adjustments to his expression; to the movements of his body and the sounds he made. Discerning the proper interpretation was challenging but hardly impossible - somewhat like playing the first round in an unfamiliar game.

I smirked in the half-light.

Like all games, it was now mine to win.

* * *

**AN:** I'm not very happy with this chapter but I've been struggling with it for a month now and needed to get it published so I can move on and write the rest of the story. If you think something works/doesn't work let me know! I'll likely end up editing this one quite a bit down the line so any feedback helps a great deal.


	19. Chapter 19

**Kaiba**

"Are we-" Atem paused for thought, his eyebrows tensing together like he was trying to figure something out. "-'Good'?" He settled on.

Were we 'good?' That sounded like something Wheeler would come out with.

Not very, but as good as we ever were. Him blaming me for losing his own Duel Disk was as idiotic as it was irritating but he'd 'conceded' that to me. His surrender was better than any sullen apology would ever be. That made us even.

I snorted back. Yeah, we were 'good' enough. For now. Until the next time he decided to blame me for his own incompetence.

"That's good." He added, slowly blinking at me like I was some half-feral cat.

We stared at each other in the almost-comfortable-but-not lull of our mutual agreement that we were 'good'. I'd missed a Friendship 101 class somewhere in Gozaburo's curriculum and without being able to speak I had no idea what to do next. I could count the seconds tick by in drips echoing from some far off chamber to my right and with each one of them the silence became incrementally more awkward.

Atem blinked twice, as though he'd just woken up from some daydream.

"Do you hear that?" he questioned. His chunky earrings jingled against the sharp contours of his cheek as he turned his head and glanced off toward the sound of my makeshift clock.

"Yeah." I growled out. It sounded more like a hum. "So what?"

"That's the sound of our way through this cave." Atem declared - so certain he might as well have been putting a card into play or commanding a monster to attack. His stance became rigid with that dueling confidence that locked every line in his body into place as he pointed us onward, down an opening in the cave wall that could only have been about six foot tall and five wide.

Fine for him, but even if I was still a human I'd have had to stoop to go through it. In my current form he was just being delusional; especially when a comfortably dragon-sized tunnel was right beside it. I nudged him in the back with my nose toward the clearly superior option. He staggered forward as I almost knocked him over again, only this time it wasn't deliberate. His sandals slapped against the cave floor as he steadied himself and glanced back at me in reprimand but at least this time he didn't shout at me to 'control myself' again. As if he was one to talk.

"Not that way, Kaiba." He'd decided. I narrowed my eyes at him as he took a step back toward the smaller tunnel, planting one leg on its opening like he was claiming it as new land for his kingdom and didn't have a flag handy. "We need to follow the sound of the water. I'm sure of it." He flicked his wrist at me, beckoning me over. I had my doubts in the wisdom of that.

"And what? You've got a dowsing rod hidden somewhere up your skirt?" I didn't think he'd understand all of that, but he seemed to read the dubiousness in my tone if his pensive frown was anything to go by.

"I know it to be true." He insisted, holding out his hand in some misguided invitation even though he knew damn well I didn't have a hand of my own to spare right now and wouldn't have grabbed onto his even if I did.

"Fine. Whatever." Impracticality aside I couldn't deny I was brutally interested in confirming an earlier suspicion.

I jerked my right arm at the tunnel as an invitation for him to go first. He caught onto it and inclined his head regally - as though he was thanking me for my service. The eye of the Millennium Puzzle lit up like a night light as he palmed it and flooded the chamber with that irritating bright golden glow that I'd spent whole nights recreating for his custom Duel Disk. I doubt he'd noticed the effort; but it'd pleased me anyway. I'd managed to make the simulation a perfect replica of the real thing. The new makeshift flashlight gleamed steadily against his torso as he let it go and pointed his body down the narrow opening in the cave wall.

As a dragon approximately twice my normal height and likely four times my normal weight going down the larger tunnel suited me best, but that wasn't the only reason for my vote. It would suit Atem better too. He just didn't know it yet. If he thought I'd missed it his strange reaction in the forest, or that it hadn't aroused my curiosity, then he was dead wrong.

Atem paused at the cave's mouth and I drank in that heady rush that comes with being proven right as a small shiver ran the length of his spine. His breath caught in his throat and he glanced back at me.

I smirked in reply and nodded him on down the cavern. Despite having a dragon's face I must have managed to make my expression every bit as challenging as I wanted it to be - challenging enough to make sure he stuck with his decision. He was too prideful to back out now with me goading him.

"You made the choice Pharaoh; deal with it." I growled.

I guess he heard the amusement in my tone. He scowled at me and with a prissy furl of his cape squared his shoulders and marched forward down his chosen path, the whites of his eyes just a little bit brighter than normal.

Sure. Let him go charging off into that tight, dark little cave with a dragon boxing him in behind. If I was right and he really was remotely claustrophobic it would serve him right for being an arrogant blowhard. Knowing Atem even if he was terrified he'd probably refuse to react, just to prove how superior he was.

What would he even look like, crushed in true fear's iron grip?

Terror was an emotion I'd never personally managed to put on his face - or Yugi's face, to be accurate. Hell, did he even feel fear? Fear was just another sort of weakness and I'd searched well enough for something to exploit to know the King of Games was just about as infuriatingly infallible as they came. In fact, the very thought of Atem showing weakness of any kind under any circumstance repulsed me, but was somehow also compelling at the same time.

Would he turn pale and wide-eyed? I didn't like that idea. He'd look too much like Yugi that way. Maybe his pupils would shrink to pin-pricks and his lips would crack open as his teeth gritted together, the stupid Puzzle buffeting again that slim chest of his as it worked itself overtime and he sweated out from the temples down.

I liked that thought better. I kept poking at the image in my mind, getting a jolt back from it every time I did. There really was an appeal in breaking down the mighty; even in my own imagination.

Shit.

Whatever misplaced hormones were fueling this fucking weird little tangent evaporated as Gozaburo's victorious leer smacked me in the brain. I shut it down. Shut the whole train of thought down, decommissioned it and melted it down for scrap. My jaw was clenched so tightly together it took effort to reopen the vice.

Atem's hair swayed like he'd been looking at me in the few nanoseconds I'd been distracted and quickly turned his head back around so he wouldn't get caught. He covered it up by starting to talk - largely to himself. I suspected it was to keep his own nerves steady rather than to make conversation with me, since the best response he was going to get would be some variation of 'garoo'. Plus it figured he'd take comfort in the sound of his own voice.

"The canyon is full of caves like this." The cavern hollowly echoed his words back to him. He stretched out his long dark fingers and ran his fingertips against the cave wall as we walked. "They feed water into a grand oasis." Some dust and grit came back on them and he wiped it off on his outfit like a little kid would.

He glanced back at me and there was this lukewarm heat that I didn't recognize in his eyes.

"Father named it the Queen's Jewel in my mother's honor." He reminisced aloud, clearly not caring that I clearly didn't care. "It was her favorite place in our kingdom." Either forgetting it was dirty or not caring he placed his palm flat against the cave wall again and leaned against it nonchalantly, but I could still see his chest rise and fall irregularly in the half-light. He was trying to steady himself, and trying to do it under the radar without me noticing. It was way too late for that, but whatever. I'd let him curb his little mini freakout in private as repayment for back in the pod.

There was a pause as his eyebrows shot up into his hairline. "I learned to swim here." He realized with a hollow note of disbelief, like he'd just remembered the fact. "And it was the destination of my first ride as a boy." With a shake of his head and with a self-depreciating huff of laughter he smirked wistfully at me and added, "I had forgotten that."

Hnh. Interesting. If you could make it here and back within a day then we probably weren't as far away from where we'd started as I thought - so long as his wild interpretation of this dimension's geography didn't come back to bite us. Atem patted the wall and finished grounding himself. With another overly-dramatic flip of his cloak he turned away from me and took off down an adjacent tunnel, leaving me to tag along behind him like some useless sidekick.

"It seemed like such a long way to ride when I was small." He mused as my claws skittered across the floor to close the distance between us again. "It was my family's most private place. Beyond my Father's priests and guards few knew the trails to reach it."

Sure. Wouldn't want the commoners washing their dirt off in the royal swimming hole.

I thought of him as a duelist first and a Pharaoh second - if at all. Was that why it suddenly felt so damn weird to think that he'd been born a prince, vacationing in private oases and surrounded by whatever else passed as luxury in this backwards time? It was hard to imagine someone so infuriatingly capable had been born a coddled 'old money' aristocrat with a silver spoon in his mouth. He'd probably been just as haughty and smug as a little kid as he was now, and with good reason. He'd been spat out into the world already knowing exactly who he was supposed to be and what he was meant to do. I could guarantee he'd never needed to be beaten down and manually course-corrected, or reset to factory standard in a neat little coma. As a little Pharaoh-to-be I'd bet he'd never had to snatch the world up in his hands and bend it until either he it broke or it broke him. No wonder he was the sort if dolt who fell for the idea of 'destiny' and 'fate'. If 'fate' did exist, it had been damn good to him.

"Mother and I spent all day here celebrating the anniversary of my birth each year." He continued to recall out loud again, annoyingly. What the hell had brought all this on?

"She had poor health and rarely left the palace, but each year on that day she would always claim to feel strong enough to leave her chambers so we could come." His tone was smooth, but lacked his usual theatrical projection. That was for the best - last thing we needed was another one of his loud-mouth proclamations causing a real cave in. What a way to die.

I didn't have anything to say in response, so I grunted just to show I was listening. Ironically it was the first semi-human sound I'd manage to vocalize with any degree of accuracy since polymerizing into a Blue-Eyes. I guessed that was approximately what I resembled right now. I needed a mirror.

Atem didn't even notice my noise. He kept barrelling on down memory lane like a steamroller.

"She died here, when I was a boy." He remarked.

Well that took a sharp right turn.

I heard his breathing level out but couldn't see his face. He kept it turned away and continued casually marching on down the cave as though he'd just thrown out a comment about the weather or a lackluster product review.

He looked at his hand and flexed his fingers in the gloom.

"I held her hand as she departed the living world for the next. It was peaceful." He added, sounding almost serene about it.

He turned to me slightly, just enough for me to make out some plaintive smile. Whatever he thought the point of telling me all this was I didn't like it. Right now looked more like Yugi than he did himself and that really got under my skin. He lifted one hand and cradled the Puzzle in it with a far off look that was so alien to his usual hyper-calibrated focus.

I didn't like how he was acting, and I also didn't like how he was talking. He'd almost made death sound like a relief instead of an escape or a weapon, like it really was.

Moronic.

"I suppose we have that in common." He surmised.

"Grtch." Think again, Pharaoh.

So we might both have lost our mothers, but I couldn't empathize. Apparently the circumstances couldn't have been more opposite. My last memory of my mom was her energetically laughing and joking she was lucky to still fit through the door of our crummy little apartment as my dad ran around the house packing a bag for her to use in the maternity ward. Her excitement had been contagious and looking back on it, that was probably the last time I saw my biological father smile. I didn't really get it when he came back with just a baby and not my mom. I didn't understand how someone like her who'd been so vigorously present could suddenly be 'gone'. I hadn't thought about that in a long time. I'd conditioned myself not to. Each time I did it felt like I was betraying Mokuba. It wasn't his fault. People die.

I couldn't tell what Atem was thinking as he mindlessly traced the eye on the front of the Puzzle with his thumb but he didn't keep me in suspense for long. "It's hard to believe I could have ever forgotten such memories." He added, completely lost in his own thoughts as he stared down into its yellow glow.

I stayed quiet, just letting him have his moment. His tone was somber, but not exactly mournful and his breathing was back to normal. Guess despite the depressing subject matter, the nostalgia had calmed him down.

Or not.

Atem glanced back at me with a troubled frown a second later. His expression set my teeth on edge, but that wasn't enough to prepare me for his follow up question.

"At what age did you lose yours?" He asked, eyebrow slightly perking with either sympathetic interest or grim curiosity - it was hard to tell.

"Grrrrrrn." I growled out a little warning before I could get ahead of the impulse and squash it.

I didn't like the focus of this one-sided conversation suddenly shifting onto me, but I'd still take whatever this morbid grieve-a-thon was to the freakout he'd been building up to before. What Atem freaking out would be like I had no idea, but I didn't want to have to deal with it. The thought of him showing that sort of weakness outright disgusted me.

I could just go ahead and not answer the question. I could ignore him until he got the message that swapping stories about dead parents was right at the bottom of my bucket list, one down from being bludgeoned to death with a socket wrench, but there was no point. Any mystery about my origins was already known to him - at least in part - no thanks to Noah. Both he and Yugi had already seen far too much of the shit show that was my childhood thanks to that prepubescent punk's asinine little recreations in his virtual world. I hated that Atem had seen me like that; that Noah had muddied his image of me that way. Showing me off as some miserable puny runt being kicked around by the world. That was all a long time ago. Now I was Seto Kaiba, the Pharaoh's fiercest opponent, and he better not forget it. After he got his answer he'd probably lose interest. It's not like I could ever hold his attention for more than a duel's length of time anyway.

Blue-Eyes' claws didn't fully bend or flex like human fingers. I had to stop limping around behind him and re-balance my center of gravity before I could apply them to the cave wall with any sort of precision. Atem paused, his frivolous gold headband glittering in the half-light as he turned around fully to see what I was doing.

With a few swipes I managed to scratch five grooves into the rocks and just about make them level within an acceptable variance. Striking through the tally with a diagonal line was the hardest part.

"Five." Atem noted in understanding.

Good.

Discovering that the King of Games was useless at charades was eyebrow raising and amusing but sure sucked when I couldn't shout the real meaning at him, or grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he either figured it out or died of a concussion.

I settled on nodding in confirmation, dipping Blue-Eyes' elongated neck a few inches downwards and then raising my head back up again.

"I see." He stroked the gouges I'd made with a look I couldn't even start to decode but shut up at least.

Funny how simple it was to co-exist with Atem when I was reduced to just nodding or shaking my head like a cheap dashboard ornament. Silence settled between us again but before I could celebrate the end to the uncomfortable conversation he prodded me again, like he was trying to squeeze me for information that he had no right to.

"Do you remember her well?" He asked in a tone that was clearly designed to be as unassumingly neutral as physically possible. It fell short. There was nothing unassuming about Atem at all - ever.

"Mind your own business." My words came out as a hiss of warning.

What was with him?

I'd already answered one pointless question and I wasn't going to do it again. He should have quit while he was ahead.

He chuckled, soberly.

"I can almost hear you telling me to keep my questions to myself." He mocked, recovering his normal volume slightly and throwing an oh-so-superior grin at me. Arrogant know it all.

I snapped at him with my teeth, not really to bite him - though if I did by accident then he deserved it - but to communicate clearly in the best way I had left that I didn't find anything about this funny. He was so light of his feet he effortlessly dodged out of the way of my teeth even in the narrow space and glared at me for that. I glared the hell back. I wasn't the one who was suddenly determined to talk about my dead mom. He needed to back off.

My past was off-limits and besides that, totally irrelevant. Only my future mattered - the future that Mokuba and I were going to keep playing out. If 'fate' was a thing and really had dealt us such pathetic cards then it must be pretty pissed to know I'd turned them into a winning hand. I felt my jaw twist into a decidedly inhuman smirk. The muscles and bones all pulled in strange ways.

Atem recovered his footing and side-eyed me, the same way you would a bomb with a faulty detonator.

The aggressive impulse living at the back of my head woke up after sleeping off the satisfaction of cutting up Atem with a sword earlier and pitched that I'd feel better if I'd actually bitten him. Another part of me better calibrated for self-assessment reluctantly conceded that my sudden surge of anger wasn't totally his fault. The answer to his question was what had really irritated me. I knew that if I paused and really contemplated it, the answer would be 'no'.

No, I didn't remember my mother well.

Not when compared to the detail I'd recalled Atem in when building his AI counterpart. Almost every one of those memories was perfect in clarity and absolute in accuracy. By comparison I wasn't sure of much about my mom and the memories that were left over could just be a byproduct of wishful thinking.

I could remember her smile, but couldn't draw it with drafting paper in front of me. I knew she used to laugh all the time, but I couldn't hear what it sounded like anymore. She had Mokuba's eyes and I'd inherited her paler complexion. That was just about the only two things I was sure of. I couldn't recall if her hair matched Mokuba's too.

It didn't matter. It was useless information. She was dead. My brain had no reason to store the data and absolutely no need to retrieve it. Dead people were irrelevant. Technically Atem was dead too - but he didn't count. He was still frowning, but kept watching me expectantly through the corner of his eye so I shook my head at him. At least that would shut him up.

He dipped his in acknowledgment and didn't comment or follow up.

Smart guy. It was better that way.

The steady narrowing of the tunnel came as a relief from this mindless conversation.

Five foot of space became four and a half - then four and a quarter. My wings were so cramped against my back that they began to ache in protest. Looks like being compressed so tightly against the body wasn't whatever counted as 'natural' for them. The only point scored was the dislocated one didn't have enough room to jostle around in anymore and by proxy wasn't bothering me as much.

What bothered me now was Blue-Eyes' instincts.

Compact spaces didn't phase me - most of my favorite places like the cockpit of my jet and drivers seat of my cars were smaller than this, but that was as a human. Now that I was polymerized some primordial alarm bell was shrieking at the back of my lizard-brain that being in a place too tight to turn around in and being unable to open my wings out fully with no obvious way out other than Atem's 'follow the sound of water' theory was a fucking terrible idea. I ignored it. Not being able to turn around wasn't going to be a problem. Turning back wasn't my thing. Instead I watched Atem plow on down the tunnel with steps that became stiffer by the second. The production hadn't begun yet, but I had a front row seat to a live performance of 'The Pharaoh's Freakout: A One Man Show.'

He turned back to chastise me with a suitably up-tight look as I scoffed with amusement. There was a new flush of heat across his face that was obvious even in the low light and against his darker Egyptian complexion.

Oh relax, Pharaoh. Wipe that stupid look off your face and just be smug that your plan was going to work out.

Narrowing or not, the further through the tunnel we got the more likely the idea they acted as a feeder for some mythical paddling pool became. The floor of the cave was beginning to smooth out as if there'd been water flowing over it at some point to erode away all of the hard edges and the dripping noise had been joined by the muffled sound of some stream rushing around somewhere.

"Oh great." I snorted to myself as the light from the Puzzle's eye slid over the next obstacle in this farcical misadventure.

Up ahead a partial cave-in had lowered the ceiling, dropping the height of the tunnel by a few feet. Atem slid his arms over his chest to cross them and stared at the collapse as though that alone would clear it. There was an air of calculation in the look he shot me and then back at the gap between the stones.

"You're not going to fit." He deduced thoughtfully, as if I'd played a new trap card on him and he was deciding the best countermove.

"Oof. Shocker." I grunted back as sarcastically dead pan as a dragon's limited vocal cords were capable of sounding. It was too late for him to come to that conclusion. Caves were a terrible place for a dragon. Whatever idiot was responsible for dreaming up the stereotype that dragons should live in caves needed a reality check.

"Stay here, I'll see what's ahead." He commanded, tossing me a firm look to convince me to do what he wanted while ducking down stiffly like an old man with aching knees to get through the opening. That seemed weird. Usually he moved with a haughty grace. I growled back at him and his stupid order. Of course I was going to 'stay here.' I couldn't go anywhere.

The light of the Puzzle disappeared with him as he reached the other side, leaving me to stand around quietly in the dark like a moron. My tail thumped in irritation. I'd have to get a better grip on it - it seemed to have a mind of it's own. Holding it still as it tried doing it again distracted me for a few milliseconds, until-

"-Hn!" From behind the rocks I heard Atem inhale sharply first, and then grunt. His sandals slapped around irregularly like he'd staggered off balance and then there was just a deep labored gasping noise.

Hearing that - from him - set me on edge.

"What?" I snapped - gritting my teeth so hard my jaw hurt.

He didn't reply.

"Hey!" I snarled, throwing away all of the fucks I gave about causing a cave in as I blasted the opening wider with my breath and jammed my head and neck through the hole, half digging out and half wriggling my good arm and a section of my torso through before my wings snagged on the rocks.

He'd reached a makeshift hub in the cave network; tunnels and passages were everywhere - veering off in every direction like synapses from a brain and Atem was just standing there right in the middle, staring forward at nothing - fists clenched, svelte muscles straining against his sweat-slicked skin as if a fight was about to break out.

"What the hell is up with you?" I roared, blasting away at more of the rock and squeezing through my wings and back-end. I didn't even bother trying to fight the instinct as my tail thrashed like a whip as I closed in on him.

We weren't 'friends' or anything so pathetic but even to an outlier it was obvious something was wrong with him.

"This is-"

His hand reached for the material of his robe, snatching up a tight fist of linen right over his heart. His knuckles turned almost white as he just stood there, holding the fabric in a death grip so hard his hand started to shake. Those shudders spread down his arm and through his body like a thousand volts. Within seconds he was trembling from his jaw to his knees.

"I -" He choked out, strangling the rest of the sentence off like he couldn't breathe.

A new sheet of sweat broke out over his forehead as a wet shine on his skin reflected in the low light.

Great. So he was going to freak out anyway, making all that nostalgic nonsense about our dead moms totally worthless. That figured.

His head swiveled back and forth looking around the room and with each abrupt turn his footing shifted off-balance as though he was dizzy or drunk. Hormone-fueled or not, it looked like my earlier guess was on the money. His pupils sure shrank until they were so small I almost couldn't make them out anymore, but somehow they also managed to pulsate in the darkness. The stare he was giving the cavern was unfocused. Distressed. There was nothing but the sound of his ragged half-breaths - just loud enough to be annoying and irregular enough to be a concern.

So this was what Atem freaking out looked like. He startled at the sound of my claws scraping against the rocks and spun on his heel to stare back at me, blankly.

I snatched up the neckline of his cape and pulled him against me to right him as he lost his balance and almost fell flat on his ass. His flailing arms smacked me across the face as he scrambled at my neck for purchase, reeling himself against me like a fish on a line until we were so damn close he could lean his forehead against mine - or the spot on my skull between my eyes that best equated to a dragon's forehead anyway.

"Grhn."

A short quiet hum was the only protest I could come up with while he was being so distracting. We stayed static like that for what felt like an eternity - me stood against him like a statue with my nose pressed into the cloak at his neck, feeling his pulse race against my snout and listening to him fail to inhale in a cave full of air. Somehow it felt like I was suffocating along with him in the pauses between his gasps; like we were in another tag team duel and forced to share each other's fate.

"Nhhhhhhggggr."_ "Just breathe already."_

His lips opened and closed without saying anything and those freakish red eyes I couldn't look away from snapped back into focus for a second at the sound I was making - momentarily pulled out of his meltdown. They jumped over my face but didn't really land anywhere in particular. It was disturbing to see him of all people lose it. I didn't like watching this. That in itself surprised me.

"You're having a panic attack." I told him with zero uncertainty. My intended grunt was just a harsh vaguely lizard-ish chirp by the time Blue Eyes' mouth finished parsing out the words, but once again his eyes sharply focused on me.

Fine.

Very deliberately I breathed in through my nostrils and out through my mouth, ignoring the stabbing humiliation of pantomiming the action with such embarrassing exaggeration. It took me repeating it over a few times until the motions finally caught Atem's full attention and he got it into his head that I wasn't doing this fun little breathing exercise for my own damn amusement. He started trying to copy me.

"Good. Keep doing that." I grumbled out as he got into the rhythm, irritated. I was glad to quit the stupid act. His eyes locked on my mouth, staring at it as though hanging on my every tone and if he looked away he'd be sucked out of existence.

Interesting.

Now that he was choking out and I was a dragon incapable of human speech this was my chance to finally let loose on him without being interrupted or reprimanded like some snot-nosed kid; to feel that rush that comes with shouting the big-headed windbag back down to size. Hell, it might even distract him long enough for his body to get a clue and remember how to fully inhale.

It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Seizing those was what I did best.

"I hate you." I told him in a stupidly soft growl. The sentence jumped out of my mouth like an over-keen intern given a coffee order and just like one of those air-headed dolts I wasn't sure if it darted out the door with the right information. I needed to clarify.

"I hate everything you've done to me." Better, but still not exact enough. My declaration came out as a soft huffy sound - closer to a coo than the snarl I'd wanted it to be.

"Every humiliating defeat you've handed me. Every pompous lecture. Every. Single. Scar."

This time I got what I wanted. Aggression soaked into my vocalizations - adding enough heat to the pathetic little noises I'd been making before to make it a sound worthy of being made by a dragon! Atem was like a lightning rod when it came to attracting trouble - it figured that adding hostility to my tone got his attention. It raised his proverbial hackles. The fog in his eyes receded a bit as he lifted them to mine to figure me out.

"I hate your friends, and your cards, and your genuine belief in total nonsense." I snapped, throwing out the sentiment as a real snarl and that commanded his full attention. Call it luck, destiny, fate, the will of the divine - all of it was hot garbage not even fit to produce a direct-to-video B movie.

Focus came back into his eyes as he really looked at me, reigning in his breathing as he sized me up, his right eyebrow raising slightly in some half-formed challenge.

"I hate that you walked out on our battle, to go and what? Be dead?" I pressed, hissing at him so hard it blew his bangs back from his face for a second. It was such a stupid waste. No goodbye. No last will and testament. Nothing left behind. Just like my mom. I couldn't even stand to look at him. I whipped my head away. In the corner of my eye Atem opened his mouth to say something, but then thought twice about it and closed it down again.

What else? There was more. There had to be. I'd spent too many sleepless nights lying paralyzed in bed under the weight of exactly how much I hated this 'other Yugi' to be short on grievances to finally voice.

"I hate everything about you."

"Kaiba-"

That was lame. I was loosing my momentum, and my fighting spirit from the sound of the tepid draconic murmur.

"-But beyond all that, most of all I hate your ridiculous hairdo; you pharaoh-themed troll doll." I sneered out in conclusion - the sound just as gravelly and soft as the first simpering coo had been.

He was in the process of catching his breath, but still somehow managed to sound haughty as he chortled, dryly.

"Kaiba, that had best not have been an insult." His words were hoarse, barely audible and mildly chiding.

"Tch." He clearly didn't understand me so that had to be a lucky guess.

"I thought so." Atem weakly smirked, his pupils were still small so he was clearly still shaken up but recovering from it quickly if this was anything to go by. I grunted at him and his irritating ability to figure me out only when it was least useful, to me anyway.

"Your tone betrays you." He added in tight warm words, wiping away some of the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand and then trying to pull his cloak smooth. It was a pointless gesture - he was still sweating buckets but there was a vague relief in watching him go through the mechanical motions of fixing himself up. "Don't think the veil of dragon-speak allows you to slander me at will."

My reply was a hollow snort.

"And what the hell was all of that anyway?" I demanded, flipping my nose at him like an over-eager dolphin so he'd get the question. Atem placed his own hand in his chest, breathing deeply and slowly to try bringing himself back under control and then grimaced and looked away. He was still shaking.

"For just a moment, I thought -" he hesitated, swallowed thickly and muttered the rest against my scales with hot breath. "- I thought I was imprisoned within the Puzzle once more." All his usual swagger and confidence was out to lunch and I now discovered that smugness was just as irritating when it was missing as when it was at full power.

So that was it, huh? Spend a few thousand years inside the worlds most impractical necklace and you get an exotic tan, a private paradise and a healthy dose of claustrophobia or whatever this was as a severance package.

"How foolish." He whispered to himself, ruefully.

"It's not." I reluctantly murmured back.

Of course the one time he was actually making sense he'd dismiss it as 'foolish'. In comparison to most of his usual nonsense this was damn sensible. At least as sensible as any phobia could be. I couldn't imagine what it was like to be trapped forever in some oversized trinket swinging from Yugi's pencil neck, but I did know what it felt like to be a prisoner.

No wonder he was freaked out.

I could relate to him for once, though my way of dealing with it wasn't exactly the same. Unlike Atem I willingly returned to the site of my prior incarceration every night after work. Although I hated the place I'd succeeded in making the Kaiba mansion into a home for Mokuba, and I needed somewhere to store my coats and cards.

"It's fine." I added. Or tried to. The words this time didn't translate as a growl or a roar, instead they became a deep humming noise. The sound was far too soft. I could never imagine an actual dragon making it, but it would do given the situation.

"Ha." Atem laughed to himself scornfully and then took a deep breath. "The feeling has passed." he tried to assure me as he shakily stepped away from me to finish tidying his outfit. "I've never - ghn - experienced anything like that before." Kneeling down to straighten out of the gold band around his ankles that had somehow gone askew made him wince briefly in the middle of his sentence but he ignored it, shooting the tired remains of his usual prideful grin back at me. "Thank you."

"Save it." I huffed, illogically talking back like we were still capable of having a real conversation. "I'm not like Yugi. I wasn't trying to help you." I just didn't want to watch him lose his proverbial shit.

I didn't want to see him, the unbeatable King of Games, afraid or venerable. I couldn't stomach weakness. Yet, it hadn't been as annoying to deal with as I'd thought. In anyone else I'd find a panic attack pathetic - but then, Atem wasn't like 'anyone else'. He was anything but weak. The Pharaoh was utterly untouchable. Relentlessly powerful. Demanding so. He'd stood up against Pegasus, against Noah, against Anubis and Dartz; carving out a path to victory as I was knocked unconscious or comatose, or legitimately petrified. He was so formidable it was almost palpable. Unattainable.

This didn't make him seem weak to me. It made him seem...'Comparable'.

"It helped, regardless of your intentions." He belatedly noted his dry lips quirking into almost a smile - apparently continuing the already one-sided conversation I'd been distracted from and guessing what my reply had been with some sudden burst of expert accuracy.

Smug bastard.

"You should know, I can understand you." Those red eyes of his turned on mine, thicker than blood.

"Is that a fact?" I tested, supremely doubtful. If he really could understand me with any degree of accuracy there was no way he'd just calmly stand there after everything I'd just shouted at him.

"Yes."

Tch. 'Yes' was a generic answer with a wide pool of applications - him replying with it was just a lucky guess.

He chuckled at me, still a little breathless but apparently feeling good enough now to try pissing me off. "Not the words. But your feelings."

My feelings? He was bluffing. There was no way that was true.

"Snarl at me all you wish, but I don't return them." He added with self-satisfied confidence. I sneered at him. This was starting to sound far too personal for my tastes, again. Atem's answer to my disbelieving glower was just a mild little smirk.

"Your anger. Your bitterness. They're wasted on me. I don't return them". It sounded like such a simple conclusion coming from his mouth. As if I could just throw them away as 'waste' and still be me. I might be talking to Atem version 2.0 since he got his memories back but the rest of us didn't get to download system-wide personality updates like that.

He closed his eyes slowly, his long dark eyelashes shuttering against cheek before flicking back open with a challenging gleam.

"You may resent me but I'm fond of you, Kaiba." Came the smug declaration to back up his expression. "Foolhardy as that may be." He taunted.

My heart rate leaped nonsensically as if we were about to duel.

Definitely too personal. I snapped at him angrily for trying to mess with my head but he didn't even flinch, knowing that I wouldn't actually bite him.

Atem could lecture me over a dueling arena about being stubborn or arrogant, selfish and just generally unlikable until he used up all the oxygen on Earth, but 'fond'. What did that even mean? 'Fond' was a word that meant everything or nothing. It could be equated to loving something, or liking it, or even just a vaguely positive indifference. He'd chosen it to be intentionally confusing.

I didn't know why I even cared. What did it matter? I growled at him, hoping he got the message to shut the hell up and stop saying ridiculous things.

He laughed in my face at that and shook his head, the motion making his feathery gold bangs lazily sway back and forth. With a flick of his hand he waved the comment away, instead stretching his arm up to pat my side like I was an oversized horse. It was strategic I realized as he left his hand poised next to my bad shoulder. It trembled slightly against my scales. He ignored it. His eyebrow arched questioningly, mockingly, "I know you believe in the repaying of debts."

"Grrrrrrr." Was that it? He'd said what he had so I'd lower my guard and he could fulfill some pressing need to try his hand at being an amateur physiotherapist? A panic attack and a dislocated shoulder were hardly equals.

Shrugging my shoulder hurt but threw him off of it at least. The surface of his bracelet flashed in the Puzzle's light as he held his arm aloft for a long minute before dropping it back to his side. A contemplative frown slid over his face as Atem opened his mouth to ask a question and then hesitated.

"Do you think less of me now?" was the eventual question, somehow still managing to sound proud and cavalier. Did I think less of him? For freaking out on me? It's not like I hadn't done it to him before and hypocrisy was for idiots. I rolled my eyes at him.

With a soft "Nnn" of amusement he hummed to himself, one of his copper fingers gesturing toward my left wing again. "Then trust I won't think less of you either." There was an easy finality to the statement but I wasn't buying it. "I'll make it quick." He added, his tone was determinedly firm with all the self-assurance of an actual trained medical professional - which he was not. My hiss of reply didn't deter him even slightly. This wasn't about trust or speed. Popping it back into position would be painful regardless of how 'quick' he did it - it always was.

"Let me help you." He added, side-eyeing me carefully as his shadow quivered on the cavern wall. "Please."

"Fine!" I snapped. He was still shivering, though it wasn't so obvious any more. It was likely he needed to do this to take back some slice of control in this ludicrous situation. I'd done worse things for the same reason. Either way if the mighty Pharaoh was so uptight that he was rolling out 'pleases' then he'd probably tie himself into a knot before he gave up on the preposterous fixation. I straightened up my spine and leveled him with a warning glare. I'd give him one shot at it. Just one.

The message got through. Atem inclined his head like he was genuinely grateful and fluidly stepped back into my personal space.

A minute ago he was barely standing on his own damn feet, but just like in a duel, with him everything could change in a minute or less. He seemed surefooted as he hopped up from an outcropping and hoisted himself up onto my back with a flex of his biceps. I coiled my neck around and observed him as leaned forward and reverently stroked down the length of the bone connecting my wing to my shoulder blade.

"It'll be better if you don't watch." He noted with neutrality, for once as a suggestion rather than some trite command.

Tch. I shook my head. It wasn't like this was the first time I'd had this done.

"Alright." He nodded in acknowledgment and didn't try to talk me out of it again.

My scales felt warm as he pressed his fingers over them, swirling them around my joint in sweeping concentric circles until "-Graaah!" I flinched as Atem found the spot he was looking for, feeling my tail lash out behind me to relieve the agony. So gently I almost couldn't feel it his hands palpated the area almost as if he actually knew what he was doing.

"Kaiba." His tone was deeper and rich in a way I had no idea how to quantify. He leaned forward, his strong thighs tensing around my sides to anchor him to my back. "Your dueling is predictable and you'll never defeat me."

"What!" My yell was a sharp bark that could have cut steel, followed by a long anguished "Gah-roooooooooooouuu!" as he used my outrage as a distraction and relocated my shoulder with the loud hollow grinding noise of bones rubbing together. The adrenaline from my surge of pure unfiltered fury fought back the throbbing sting, just like he was hoping for.

"Well done." Atem praised, testing the joint with his hands until he had to use them as leverage as I thrashed, roaring for him to get the fuck off me so I could blast his face off.

"You bastard!" I snapped at his feet and then at his knees as he pulled them away out of my reach. His legs squeezed my sides even harder as I tried to throw him, stretching up on my four now perfectly serviceable legs and arching my back to squash him like an insect between my back and the cave ceiling. He laughed - deeply - like he was having the time of his life. My wings spread open as wide as they could in the cavern's limited space and I flapped them them without even needing to think to dislodge him. It felt good - damn near divine - to be able to maneuver both of them at once for the first time. Their leather brushed against the stone of the cavern's ceiling and suddenly I longed for open sky with an intensity that defied all common sense.

Atem's weight on my back was suddenly negligible. Almost non-existent.

It was as if I was trapped in another board meeting listening to yet another droning presentation while the perfect weather for flying my jet heckled me from outside of the floor-to-ceiling length windows of the Kaiba Corporation tower. The drive to get out of this cave flooded back, twice as strong as it had been ever before. The feeling was primeval, fundamental, instinctive. I could practically feel the wind howling across my scales and smell the air.

Fine! If Atem wanted a rodeo ride he'd damn well get one.

My talons crunched down into the rocks underneath my body and then loosened, raking thin white scratches into the cavern floor and inhaled deeply through my nostrils. Blue-Eyes' body didn't need any other direction than that. I lunged down one of the adjacent tunnels, my claws and tail chilling as I vaulted into a frigid subterranean river and sprinted for some far off speck of light at the end of the tunnel and the promise of sunlight, sky and fucking freedom.


	20. Chapter 20

**Solomon**

"Everything recovered from the tomb is written in some sort of sub-dialect. It seems based on what we know of conventional religious scripture from that time period, but it's almost as though it's been deliberately muddled." Arthur explained, enthusiasm for his work shining brightly in his eyes as he looked over his findings one more time.

I nodded as I studied the copy of his notes that I'd printed out to review at my old friend's request. It had been a long time since my name carried weight as an Egyptologist, but Arthur kept me up to date on all the latest discoveries and it was my pleasure to look over his work whenever a newly discovered artifact left him puzzled.

"Like it's been jumbled with some sort of code." I agreed, leafing through the pile of papers.

Excitement was obvious in his voice. "We know so little about this time period, Solomon. Imagine if this tomb and this tablet are the keys to understanding all those missing years of Egypt's history."

I chuckled. The generation before, during and after the reign of the Pharaoh that once lived under this very roof with us – in a manner of speaking – was still largely lost to time. Besides the tablets discovered by Maximillion Pegasus and my own discovery of the young Pharaoh's tomb in the Valley of the Kings, artifacts from his dynasty were rare and defied traditional translation techniques.

"They're thinking of nicknaming him 'the Silver Pharaoh'." Arthur added, eagerly. He had a habit of jumping from one topic to the next without any notice, but as a dear friend of so many years I'd become used to the leaps in conversation and kept up well enough.

Well it was better than 'the Water Pharaoh', which was the last nickname I'd heard being pitched on the archaeological forums. Being nicknamed for the flooding of your own tomb would be unfortunate. "Oh ho ho! They've confirmed the remains are male?" I asked belatedly. The processes were so quick these days.

"They believe so. The Ministry of Antiquities pushed for machines to drain the tomb within a few days. It revealed the sarcophagus and Solomon, it's made of silver!" Arthur exclaimed in a hushed tone of awe and wonder.

What a find. For the ancient Egyptians, gold was regarded as the flesh of the gods and silver was believed to be their bones. In fact, silver was rarer in Egypt than gold and often had to be imported from Western Asia and the Mediterranean. That alone carried implications for the Pharaoh's character. Trade routes of the time would have been difficult to negotiate and defend.

"Fascinating, I-" The cheerful chirp of a phone ringing interrupted me and my friend glanced around his office as if he expected to find the source of the noise in there with him.

"It's not mine." Arthur confirmed as he hastily checked his pockets, pulling out a sturdy old cell phone to double check. It was a tough old girl; a brick by modern standards with dust from one archaeological dig too many lodged forever in its buttons.

"No, it's mine." I replied, sparing him the trouble a moment too late. I recognized the ring tone. "Excuse me for just a minute, old friend."

"Of course." Arthur's mustache quirked in an easy smile. Being clean shaven made it stand out against his face. I scratched at my beard as I found my feet and ignored the ache of my back as I ambled toward the kitchen phone. Perhaps I should shave it off? Spring and summer were around the corner, after all, and the young women these days seemed to appreciate a clean shaven man. In may day growing such a healthy beard had been a sign of masculinity but those times were gone now. Despite that, the more I contemplated it, the less I liked the idea of shaving it. It was too late to be trying to teach this old dog new tricks. I slid the phone out of its receiver and parted it from the wall, watching the cord waggling from its end and tangle on itself as I did so. Case in point, I chuckled.

The number on the display wasn't one I recognized. It seemed strange that whoever it was would call through to this phone and not the one in the shop front, but stranger things had happened.

"Kame Game; toys, collectibles and novelties." The new greeting was Yugi's creation.

I could tell that running this store with me wasn't his calling even before he seemed to realize that for himself, but that didn't stop me from using his ideas for the business. He was still trying to find his way, a little too quickly in my opinion since the Pharaoh had departed from our world, but his ideas were as sound as they came. Besides, it never hurt to listen to the youth. He and his friends kept me young at heart. He was a good grandson, and his friends had grown into equally good people, each and every one of them.

"Nyuhhh. Hey Gramps'" Joey drawled from the other end of the phone, as if just thinking about him had summoned him into the receiver. He sounded off. A little panicked, I'd say.

"Joey." I greeted my former student, though unlike Yugi I suspected there were still things I could teach Joey if he ever became my pupil again. He was yet another young man who had yet to find his way. I supposed this was the right age for self-discovery and missteps. "This isn't your usual number." I noted. Joey had a habit of either breaking his phones or coming back to find them broken if he left them in his apartment for too long. I couldn't change the life he had at home, but I could give him somewhere else to be when it all became too much. Perhaps this was one of those days. It would explain the strange number.

"Let's get him top-side and I'll call our physician. You can carry him, right?" Came a second voice, muffled by distance but easy enough to make out. It was younger, higher pitched. It sounded familiar.

"Y-yeah, no problem." Came Joey's reply, speaking to his companion rather than to me I gathered as the angle of his voice shifted back toward his friend.

"Alright, good." The younger boy replied, casually.

"Seein' how chill you are 'bout all this is kinda freakin' me out." Joey told him and then the phone buffeted against his cheek, making a soft 'bumf' as he shifted something heavy around.

It was the younger of the Kaiba brothers, I realized. That was the other voice. He seemed like a good boy, despite that horrible piece of work he had for an older brother. I'd learned the hard way with my own children that youngsters needed strong, fully present and sensible role models to grow into well rounded adults and Mokuba Kaiba had drawn a short straw there without a doubt.

"Sorry 'bout that Gramps." Joey was speaking to me again now, his voice clearer as his mouth aligned with the phone properly. "Yug' and I are, nyuhhhhh-"

"-Mind his head." Mokuba noted.

"-He's like a freakin' rag doll!" Joey protested quickly before returning his attention to the conversation. "So I know Yug' has like a shift at the store later, but nyuhhh..." There was a long pause as Joey seemed to be deciding what to say. "He's sick!"

"Oh? Yugi is sick?" The way Joey blurted it out made me doubtful and Yugi was too dutiful a grandson to be trying to escape work without a good reason.

"Wait. No. He's not sick, he's...nyuhhh." Joey hummed from the other end of the line.

"Oh wow. You're _really_ bad at lying." Mokuba's tone was dead-pan and unimpressed.

"Shhhhhhhhhushhhhh!" was hissed back.

"Joey." I began, making sure I had his full attention before continuing.

"Uh, yea?" He sounded nervous. Good. That meant he at least knew what a bad job he was doing of this.

"Why are you with Mokuba Kaiba. Where are you? Just be honest now." Saving him from having to think up another lie was probably the best thing I could do for him. Telling them wasn't his greatest strength.

"Ok, so!" Joey took a deep inhalation of breath, as though he were about to dive down to the bottom of a swimming pool, or in this case, this conversation."Me n' Yug' went over to the Kaiba place t'talk te Mokuba cos' Kaiba like, went into the afterlife to duel Atem' or somethin' and hasn't come back yet. Then the evil cube-thing started glowin' an Yug's head lit up with that weirdo third eye thing an he' just folded t'the floor like a freakin' towel. Or 'e would'a done if I hadn't caught 'im! Usually the Millennium Items just glow fer a second and then are like, done. But this ain't one a' those times! Yug's totally outta it but his forehead keeps on glowin' and the cube's doin' it too so... uh. It's not good."

"I see." I stroked my beard as I worked through all the different details, half marveling at the strange world my grandson and his friends seemed to have built for themselves, and half envious of it. To be young again. Well I definitely couldn't shave my beard now. What else would I have left to fiddle with as I contemplated the strangeness of life. We were just lucky my daughter-in-law was half a world away cruising with my son to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Had she been here still then there would have been hell to pay. "Well now, how long has it been since Yugi collapsed?" I finally answered, breaking the suspense and releasing Joey's obviously baited breath.

There was a woosh of breath as he replied; "Like, ten minutes-"

"-Twenty two minutes" The younger Kaiba corrected.

"Like, twenty two minutes." Joey corrected. "Y'wanna add in the seconds and nanoseconds too?" He quipped to Mokuba who remained silent from what I could hear but must have done something to reply as Joey snickered a second later. "Nyehehe. Real classy, kid." He added.

"That's not very long." I pondered aloud. The frequency of these sorts of going on and of course having my own soul stolen by Pegasus kept me calm. "If he hasn't woken up in a few hours it'll be time to call the hospital, but for now if he's in a safe place then he can stay there." I decided.

"Yer!" Joey agreed, enthusiastically. "Like I said, were at the Kaiba place so s'all good. They've got like fifty spare rooms or somethin'."

I could hear that Joey hadn't understood exactly what I meant. The Kaiba mansion was not necessarily a 'safe place' in my book.

"He'll be _fine_ here." Mokuba added a little sullenly. Apparently he'd been able to hear both sides of the conversation and could read between the lines.

"Alright then." I agreed, relying on the boy's word to be the truth. "If Yugi wakes up then call me. If he doesn't then call me anyway in a couple of hours." I concluded.

"Y'got it, Gramps!" Joey, muffling a little again as the soft 'bumf' of something soft but weighted being moved around repeated itself; which I now knew to be my unconscious grandson.

I shook my head as I replaced the phone on the receiver and returned to the Bonebreaker, otherwise known as the chair we used with the computer desk in the living room. Arthur had been rereading through his translation notes and shuffled them back into an orderly pile as the web camera on Yugi's laptop recorded my approach. These video chats with the Skype were truly marvelous.

"Is everything alright, Solomon?" He questioned, taking a good look at my face.

I chuckled. "Oh yes-" and then shook my head in an exaggerated disbelief. "-You wouldn't believe the mischief these boys get into."

**Yugi**

Gozaburo Kaiba had been shorter than Kaiba was when we'd seen him in Virtual World but in Kaiba's memories he towered over his adopted son, almost as if he was size of Exodia Necross itself.

"Kaiba Corporation is pleased to announce its new partnership with Ito Technologies." Kaiba was wearing a completely white school uniform that looked familiar and subtly ducked away from his step-father to put distance between them, even while he was in the middle of giving a speech at his side.

Without a glance he sidestepped Gozaburo and reached out to shake the hand of a well dressed middle aged man I didn't recognize who was stood beside them in a grey pinstripe suit. The hand shake was overly long and clearly more for show than anything else. The cameras flashed as they held the gesture still for a moment, letting everyone get their chance to take a photograph, I guessed, before Kaiba pulled back out of it.

It looked like they were at a press conference with a sea of faces watching them as the three stood together at the speaker's podium. They were just far enough away that the audience probably couldn't make it out as the older Kaiba subtly reached out to grab Kaiba and pulled at his shoulder until there was a gross hollow crunching sound, but from where I was standing behind them it sent a shiver down my spine.

"This partnership represents a new wave of initiatives to streamline the-" Kaiba had to pause his speech half way through and sucked in air through his teeth as it happened.

His expression didn't change, except maybe for just half a second, but even after that flicker of pain passed he didn't resume talking. He stood there blankly staring out across the room for just long enough for the people in the crowd to start to murmuring among themselves. How had no one else noticed it? Some started whispering and fidgeting but no one moved. I guessed the presentation was something to do with the old KaibaCorp. That would make sense given how the audience was acting - all just expectantly waiting for Kaiba to continue. Everyone watching quieted down again as Gozaburo leaned down to his son.

"Suck it up, boy." He whispered into his ear, even as his big hands squeezed down on Kaiba's shoulders. He dug his fingers into them, at a glance looking like a proud dad resting his hands on his son's shoulders - reassuring him even - until you noticed that Kaiba's lips were pressed together so hard they'd gone white and all the color had drained from his face.

Kaiba began again, his tone a little strained but not enough to carry over the podium microphone. "-to streamline the production funnel of our tanks and aircraft."

"You're useless to me one armed so you better learn to deal with it." The older Kaiba smirked nastily into his ear.

Kaiba didn't miss a beat. He kept going with his presentation as if everything was normal and all of this was perfectly fine. "A full press release detailing the innovations and changes to our current assembly line practices will be made available to the media by the end of the quarter."

"Leave him alone, you bully!" I shouted, but they couldn't hear me. That was starting to become normal.

Ever since the very first memory of Kaiba in the orphanage I hadn't been able to interact with him in any of the others and that might have been a good thing.

In the second one Gozaburo Kaiba had nearly drowned him in a farmyard trough. In that one I'd actually taken Kaiba's place in the memory, which was strange and became really scary as Gozaburo held me down. I'd come back from that memory soaking wet and Yami had sort of laughed at me a bit... until he found out why. Then he'd been angry. The third memory I'd been just forced to witness... It'd been really disturbing and just too weird for me to feel comfortable getting involved in. I'd had to look away as Kaiba's step-father made him watch him do that to that poor lady, and getting dragged along to watch Kaiba just sit blank-faced in a washroom with the lights off and not move afterwards was even worse.

This place was like a slideshow presentation of my parent's vacation photos - except the opposite. Instead of every scene being full of happily smiling people every memory was harsh and spiteful.

Kaiba's presentation ended in front of me and he turned to make an exit until Gozaburo stopped him with a hand around his wrist.

"Leaving so quickly, boy? Don't want to cozy up to the investors? It is your initiative, after all." It sounded like a taunt from the way he said it.

"I'll leave that to you." Kaiba countered, dead pan as he snatched his hand back. "My arm hurts. I must have slept on it funny."

For some reason that made his step-father grin, darkly, there was only evil in the expression. "Good." He approved with a nod. "Get out of my sight."

I trailed after Kaiba as he casually sauntered away from the podium and towards a door at the back of the stage. It opened up into a long white corridor with fluorescent lights that buzzed and hummed and as soon as he got into it Kaiba put on a burst of speed and threw himself at one of the doors. Even one handed he yanked it open so hard the door handle chipped the wall as it swung outward.

This was the first memory that Kaiba had really moved around in so I jogged after him and snuck in through the door as it finally stopped swinging on its hinges. I didn't know what would happen if I lost Kaiba while inside of one of his memories but I didn't want to chance it.

It was definitely a dressing room, or some kind of pre-presentation preparation area. The movie-star style giant mirrors on the wall and half-filled water cooler gave it away. Kaiba took three paces into the middle of the space and then threw himself into one of the pale mauve sofas, waving his left arm around and pulling at his shoulder into it seemed to click back into place. The sound alone made me wince, and that was even without Kaiba's gritty expression.

With his shoulder fixed he bolted back upright.

For a second he just stood completely still and fumed. His hands clenched into sharp fists that shook slightly, I guessed with rage. Then he just started kicking things. Anything. Everything. He kicked the couch so hard it toppled over and flipped the coffee table that had been next to it sending a couple of magazines and cups half way across the room. I was glad he couldn't see or touch me as he slammed right through my body to launch the side table behind me against the opposite wall and it looked like he was gearing up to smash the mirrors until there was a knock on the door. It was loud and purposeful even though the door to the room wasn't actually closed - just ajar.

"I'm entering." Stated a firm voice.

The unfamiliar man from the stage came through the door and closed it behind him. After everything he must have heard smashing and breaking in the corridor I thought he was crazy for coming into the room. He didn't even react to the warzone Kaiba had turned the place into - instead his bright green gaze just fixated on Kaiba.

"Mr. Ito" Kaiba acknowledged - because really there hadn't been enough warmth there for it to have counted as a greeting. It was like all of his previous rage was quickly stomped back down and hidden away as Kaiba watched the man through sharp cold eyes stroll over to one of the seats and turn it the right side up. It didn't change the fact the room still looked like a tornado had blown through it.

"Mr. Kaiba." He replied smoothly. With a heave he righted one of the seats and settled into the armchair he'd rescued so he could calmly watch Kaiba from it.

Kaiba's poker face morphed into a mean scowl as the man's next words were said.

"I saw what happened to your arm." 'Mr. Ito' offered, casually glancing around the remains of the furniture with interest.

"Tch! Whatever ever you think you 'saw', nothing happened." Kaiba's back went straight as a rod as he snapped back "You're just seeing things."

The look Mr. Ito gave Kaiba was weird.

It was overly neutral, like he was trying not to give something away. I recognized it. It was an expression I sometimes caught on the faces of older guys eyeing up Téa when we were hanging out a Burger World or Kaiba Land, especially during the summer. If I made eye-contact with any of them they'd always quickly look away, like they didn't want to be caught. It always made me feel a little defensive. This was the first time I'd ever seen that same sneaking glance aimed at a guy, instead of Téa in a miniskirt or a cute sundress.

Kaiba must have mistaken it for doubt.

"Hypothetically, if something did happen, it would be between me and my father - so none of your business." He added, crossing his arms, leaning back a bit even though he wasn't super tall yet and narrowing his eyes in a way that he clearly intended to look threatening.

Ito snapped out of it.

"Is that so?" It wasn't really a question, and everyone in the room knew it.

"Yes." Kaiba sneered.

Then they just stared at each other.

Ito hesitated for a second before he decided to carry on the conversation, even though Kaiba clearly was trying to make doing that as difficult as possible for him.

"Mr. Kaiba" He began with, fishing around in his suit jacket for something. "You're of course aware of my reputation?" Out of it he pulled a thin silver flask, the sort I'd only ever seen in old detective shows and historical movies. "The one your father despises me for." He added, uncapping it and taking a swig before stowing it back away again.

Kaiba's eyes watched the flask like a hawk for every moment that it was in sight. "That you got caught doing stuff with a minor, you mean?" I couldn't tell if the disapproval in Kaiba's voice was because of the drink, or the topic.

I couldn't imagine Kaiba partnering up with someone who'd be dangerous to kids these days, especially with how family-friendly the Kaibacorp brand was now. Even in this memory his dislike of the man was obvious, but his step-father was still alive so maybe he'd had no other choice.

"Yes." Ito noted. There was a bit of regret in his tone but even so that didn't make up for doing bad stuff to kids. "That incident ruined Ito Tech - drove it into the ground." He added wistfully. There was a break as he contemplated Kaiba, watching him thoughtfully, while Kaiba just glared back icily. "Your proposed partnership is the first step on the road to redeeming me and my company's reputation-" he was interrupted by a sharp scoff of contempt. Ito recovered smoothly, raising his voice a little to continue talking over the spiteful sound. "-I know I wasn't your first choice but this opportunity is significant to me, and I wanted to let you know that."

"Great." Kaiba sarcastically replied, totally unimpressed by all of this even as he crossed his arms a little tighter. "Now I know."

Ito shook his head in amusement. He stood up and smoothed down his suit before offering "If the time ever came for a... change of leadership in KaibaCorp - know that Ito Tech would support you, in whatever your next business venture might be."

Kaiba didn't react to the words one way or another. For a few seconds neither of them moved at all and Ito just seemed happy to stand there and look at Kaiba the same way he had earlier. I guess Kaiba felt there was something weird about it too as he demanded "Is that it?"

Ito cleared his throat. "Yes, that's it."

With a final glance he threaded his way around all the destruction back to the door and moved through it, pulling the door back ajar as he did.

"Urgh." Kaiba grunted with disgust, loosening his arms now that he was alone in the room again and gritting his teeth.

I grabbed the handle and pulled it the last inch until it was fully closed, trying to give him privacy as he moved over to the sink and began vigorously scrubbing at his hands.

I sighed as this memory started to fade away like the others had done. It filtered out around me like a kaleidoscope – the details of the scene collapsing into a bunch of fragmented pieces which slotted back together in front of me as I passed through the door and was sent back into the strange hallway of Kaiba's soul room.

I didn't know if me being here and watching all this was helping at all. It sure didn't feel like it. Knowing just how much Kaiba would hate me seeing all of these things made me feel guilty, so if I had to be here then I at least wanted to achieve something. Yami seemed pretty confident that the doors just needed to be closed and that was what was happening, but just standing around witnessing this stuff wasn't helping anyone, especially not Kaiba.

Maybe that was the point? Or maybe there was some greater purpose to all this? I sure hoped so.

"Well, at least you're not wet this time." Yami noted, sounding mildly amused.

He couldn't come into the corridor - or more like he couldn't step out of his current room - but it didn't stop him leaning against the door frame and keeping an eye on me. It felt great to have him watching my back again like this - adding in his own comments where he saw fit and occasionally busting out cool one liners, just like he'd done when we'd shared our thoughts. It was like no time had passed and we'd never been apart. The nostalgia hit me hard.

"Heh, yeah." I grinned back, awkwardly scratching at the back of my head.

Once we got Kaiba back to our dimension I wanted to talk to him about this Yami hologram... but I didn't know what I wanted to say just yet. A lot of my feelings were mixed up and it wouldn't do me any good to barge into a conversation with Kaiba about it until I figured them out first.

"You're doing well." Holographic or not, being praised by him was still the best feeling. "I think you should try that one next." Yami advised, pointing one of his - my- our fingers towards a door behind me and jolting me out of that funk.

I didn't doubt him for a second, but I still asked "How come?" anyway.

"Sounds have started coming from it" Yami explained, eyeballing it from the doorway curiously.

"Oh yeah?" I scratched my chin "What sort of sounds?" I guessed it was nothing that bad given how casual Yami was acting, but better to be prepared, right?

He blinked thoughtfully at me before slowly replying. "Like things being moved around, and opened and closed." That could be the sound of a whole bunch of things, but at least it wasn't an angry dragon roar. Yami rolled his shoulders in a small shrug and I shrugged back.

"Ok then, you got it Partner." I called out to him as I turned to the next recommended door and tested the knob. It opened up easily enough and the first thing that hit me was the smell of burning bread.

I was relieved to see that it was a pre-Gozaburo memory.

The room beyond the door was the kitchen of an apartment, attached to a living room area that I couldn't really get a good look at from this angle. Everything was a jumble. Dirty plates were all over the counters and they chimed as the shape of someone picked the stacks up and put them back down again as if checking to see if there was something under them. There was half washed cutlery thrown in the sink, a thin layer of dust on all of the pots and pans and a pile of microwavable meals poking out of the trash can. The only place the mess didn't touch was a small household shrine in the back of the living room where a photograph of a woman with her face-blurred out was standing. The missing facial features made it sort of eerie to look at. I doubted the photo really looked like that back whenever this was.

A tall thin salaryman was rushing around the little space with a phone nestled in the crook of his shoulder, wearing a suit that was the right length but buttoned up too loosely, like he'd lost a lot of weight recently. He startled as the toaster popped and swore at it before snatching up the toast and tossing it onto a plate he hastily rescued from the overstuffed dishwasher, trapping his tie in the machine as he slammed it shut and almost strangling himself by accident when he tried to march away without noticing. He freed himself, briskly walking to the kitchen table and dropping the plate of toast down on it with a noisy 'thunk' that made the man jump.

"Eat, Seto." He tiredly ordered the pair of curious blue eyes seated at the table as he stormed around the little space again.

Kaiba was a kid again this time, even younger than he had been in the orphanage. Despite that he didn't look too much different, besides having a messy bird's nest of hair instead of his usual style. He maybe looked down at the toast for two or three seconds before going back to reading a book propped open against the clutter on the kitchen table, sneaking glances at the man roaming around the kitchen as he did so. Noticing that the kid wasn't doing what he wanted the salaryman moodily cut back across to the little table, forcibly shutting the book in front of Kaiba's face and pointing a finger back at the plate of toast.

It seemed a bit passive aggressive, but Kaiba didn't think anything of it, and the picture of a flight of dragons on the book's front cover made me smile. Kaiba and his dragons.

He nibbled a corner of toast for a few seconds, just until he wasn't being paid attention to anymore and then dropped it back on the plate, instead watching the man I guessed was his biological dad as if he was a fascinating kids TV show.

The man paused in his stride, not paying 'Seto' any attention as he straightened his tie and smoothed down his suit before just zoning out right there on the spot in front of his son, staring at nothing. Now that he was standing still I could see him better. He looked like he might have been half-foreign and had Mokuba's complexion with dull grey eyes which looked exhausted and hollow. They stayed empty even as he eventually snapped out of his daydream and glanced down at his young son.

"Did you brush your hair today?" He questioned, clearly knowing the answer was 'no' based on how Kaiba looked but his question came out despairing and defeated.

"Yes." Kaiba replied back, staring his dad down point blank as though daring him to argue even though he was just a kid.

The man sighed deeply and instantly gave in.

"Have you seen my keys?" he asked next.

Kaiba shook his head as he watched his dad circle around the kitchen again. "I can't be late for this interview, Seto. Do you understand me?" he pressed desperately.

"I haven't seen them!" Kaiba insisted, sounding righteously offended by the accusation and a little bit squeaky at this age. The salaryman cursed under his breath as a high pitched cry came from somewhere I couldn't see. His face scrunched up like it was the worst sound in the world but beyond that didn't react at all.

"Go check on your bother." He eventually murmured, before going back to his search.

Kaiba actually did what he was asked this time. He jumped down from the table and wandered over through the living area out of sight to investigate the noise.

"What's wrong, Mokie?" I could just about hear through the wall and Mokuba's crying instantly softened at his brother's question. I wanted to follow after Kaiba, but paused to watch as their dad suddenly stopped looking for the keys and did something new. He used their distraction as his chance to pop some kind of pill from a kitchen draw high above the rest.

"Kuro scratched me." A little Mokuba somewhere in the next room whined softly. A chubby black cat that looked like it was the best fed thing in the whole house streaked out of the brothers' room and into the kitchen behind me before I even had to wonder who 'Kuro' was.

Kaiba led the tiny Mokuba out of the room by his hand and into the living room so he could grab a paper tissue from a tissue box balanced badly on top of a stack of TV guides and handed one over to his little brother, who at this age was pretty much just big purple eyes and a mop of dark hair. Kaiba pressed a second sheet against a thin scratch on Mokuba's hand and then turned his attention to the clock on the kitchen wall and frowned at it with an intense focus.

"You're already late." Kaiba concluded proudly, beaming at his dad.

"Yes, I know that!" The man snapped back, not even looking at Kaiba as he rifled through the kitchen draws and definitely not seeing the way his son's gleefully expression instantly sank into sour disappointment.

I felt bad for him.

"You should stay home and play with me and Mokie." Kaiba decided, tilting his head to one side in a way I'd never seen our Kaiba do and smiling with a mischievous wonky grin. That me smile a bit even as Kaiba's dad ignored him and stuck his head into the kitchen cabinets and then the microwave. Why would the keys even be in there? It sort of looked like he'd just gone into a searching frenzy and wasn't really thinking about things anymore.

"No, Seto." he scolded tiredly, like he'd heard the suggestion too many times before. "I'm leaving, just as soon as I find my keys." echoed his voice, muffled from inside of the cabinets. "Auntie will be over in twenty minutes, then you can play with Hayate."

Kaiba scowled at that news, his eyes glancing across the room to glare at a photograph of a brown-haired woman posing with her Akita.

"I don't wanna play with Hayate! Dogs are bullies! He chases Kuro!" Kaiba objected. One of the ears of the black cat now lounging on the kitchen window sill flicked at his name but apart from that the cat ignored them all. "Can't you just stay? You're already twenty-three minutes late." Kaiba repeated insistently.

There was a bit of a pause.

"Dad?" Kaiba called back over his shoulder, his expression quickly becoming a broody frown as he didn't get a response. He trotted back over to his dad's side with Mokuba in tow and tugged on the leg of his pants for attention, hovering close to him. The next part almost happened in slow motion as the man pulled his head out of the microwave and without pausing yanked at the handle of the refrigerator he was standing in front of, which flew open and smacked Kaiba squarely in the forehead to knock him to the floor.

"Seto!" His dad bellowed at him as he rubbed his head, not in concern, but in a burst of anger. Mokuba looked at them both with eyes as big as saucers while Kaiba just stared back up at him, watching as his dad's furious expression fell into abrupt panic and then slipped into looking ashamed. I didn't know if Kaiba was old enough to understand all of those emotions but he lowered his hand away from his forehead slowly anyway, as if afraid he'd be shouted at again if he moved too quickly. There was a trail of red across his miniature palm and his dad's eyes went wide at the sight. Kaiba didn't seem to realize there was any problem at all, so I guess it didn't hurt, until he followed his dad's eyes down to his own palm and noticed the blood. He glanced back upwards unsurely, waiting for his dad's response.

"Seto, don't cry." the man sputtered, looking panicked. His pupils shrank as they darted around the room like he was looking for an emergency escape exit. "Don't cry, okay?" he repeated.

Kaiba didn't seem to be in pain but as soon as his dad reacted so strongly a flash of very adult-looking calculation went through his eyes before he scrunched them up and loudly burst into crocodile tears. From behind him Mokuba copied his older brother's example and sincerely echoed Seto's false tears by breaking out into heart-felt wails to match his brother's.

The flustered man glanced between his two young and crying sons and went still, even while his eyes darted about in alarm.

"I'm sorry!" he sputtered, shouting to make himself heard over the two brothers. He fled to the front door, snatching up a briefcase and his car keys on his way over. He wrenched it open and then slammed it shut behind him, the whole motion strangely slowed down in Kaiba's memory.

As soon as the door closed on them and the footsteps from the other side got more distant Kaiba instantly stopped crying and wiped away his tears, which made Mokuba do the same. Then he scowled at the door in a way that was very reminiscent of his older self and pulled out a pair of house keys from the pocket of his jeans. The missing keys, I guessed.

I couldn't help it, but I had a weird feeling about this memory.

It wasn't as mean as any of the others had been, and Kaiba wasn't anxious or sick like the first one in the orphanage. He seemed sulky, more than anything as he guiltlessly tossed his dad's keys into the dirty water in the sink. Not knowing why this memory was here somehow made all of this way worse, like something really terrible was about to happen.

I was pretty relieved to follow their dad out through the front door and get back into the hallway with Yami... until I noticed the Kaiba brothers were the same age in the funeral that was behind the very next door.

**Ano**

The branch swayed beneath my weight as I landed to perch upon it. Below me she continued to make a spectacle of herself.

"You have lost them again, Teleia." I noted. Burying them below the earth had not been a terrible plan, but it had nevertheless backfired. Our quarry had escaped once more with their respective lives.

Teleia's clutched her head and thrashed back and forth in obvious suffering. She had brought this upon herself.

The Master was displeased. He was making that known to her. She forced one eye open to hatefully behold me while the other remained tightly closed against the Master's reprimands.

"Yes – yes my sweet Master. Of course!" She gasped, speaking to him aloud as he willed agony into her body and tore into her mind. "-I will not fail you again! I will never fail you again! No. No. Never!"

Teleia was due this for allowing the Master into her thoughts so easily; so eagerly; yet it was beginning to become difficult to keep him from penetrating my own mind too. His power was growing. Though dropping the Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba through the earth had not earned them a second death, the damage inflicted to both was feeding him their strength in invisible strands of energy.

The reprimand ended and Teleia straightened. She panted as she was released from her punishment, sweat collecting where her heavy breasts met and strained against the thin linen barrier to stain her host's robe. She failed to catch her breath. Her host's chest heaved with effort. Clawing at thick gold band around her waist and forcing it from her body alleviated this. The circlet rolled away as she crushed the neckline of her robe beneath her fingernails and shredded the fabric with a loud rip. Teleia was not finished. With viciousness she yanked the priestess's garb away from her skin as though fighting it for room to breathe and released the now misshapen robe. It cascaded back over her host's body in light waves, torn and soiled.

Her host body was her greatest asset, yet Teleia in her ponderous stupidity paid it no mind. Her clothes were now destroyed. Her hair was tattered. A mixture of dirt both necrotic and not stained the side of her face.

She would likely kill the priestess if she continued this way.

Such an arrangement suited me. Teleia was a gluttonous fool and deserved to become the victim of her own carelessness, and yet my host disagreed. Though ever calm and subdued I felt Mahad's foreign concern for her body leak into my thoughts. He lessened it, as though there was something he would rather not reveal to me fueling its fires. I did not care so I did not pry.

Not while there was information more useful to my purposes.

There was a well-deserved cruelty to it. Had Teleia permitted her host greater sentience she would have been privy to the priestess's wisdom. Instead by denying her and binding her in silence Teleia remained ignorant. The knowledge of these priests was valuable. Mahad's memories revealed to me his understanding of our current location. Though he knew little about the caves the Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba had escaped into like rats, he knew much of the oasis beyond and the pathways leading to it. He could anticipate where they would emerge.

This insight was now mine and mine alone.

"You must find them, before the master loses what remains of his patience." I observed with finality. "Or your fate will be sealed." Teleia paled, no longer able to muster her usual hungry bluster. Whatever torture the Master had just finished inflicting would be nothing in the face of another defeat. It was a fact we both knew. I spread my wings wide and sailed away from her and the stench of her failure knowing that she would not find them. She did not know where to look. I did. It was near pleasing.

The wind was my aid as I made my way though the air.

It was a disappointment that my bid to grant the Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba this same advantage had been negated when Teleia stole her Mark of the Rose back from me. In commanding the Pharaoh to injure Seto Kaiba she had foiled me without even being aware of my ploy. Should the Master regain strength enough to force himself within my mind there would be no mercy for plotting against him. Such was a fate deserving of a traitor. Accepting this or not, it was no end to be welcomed nor looked forward to.

The roaring of water crashing down upon itself marked Mahad's target.

The yellow and red rocks of the canyon parted from their narrow pathway and spread wide. The reveal was splendid. A paradise more fanciful than anywhere else I had yet to fly over in this world of souls shone below me like the jewels of a crown. Sapphire blue waters, flanked by an emerald green shoreline teeming with the lushest of plants and palms, all embraced by white gold sand unsullied and untouched by mortal feet. The ruddy red stones of the canyon enclosed the gleaming oasis with protective walls, shielding it from all points of ingress but that of a single winding track carved between jagged rock faces. The unyielding natural barrier featured an opening a great distance upward; water spilling from the mouth of a mighty cave that overlooked the vista to create a waterfall of such height and majesty I had never known.

Noises echoed from the cavern's depths.

They drew me and I found a new perch upon a rocky outcropping that gave me a well veiled view of the cave mouth. Heavy splashes and the scraping of claws against stone heralded them into my view as the silver beast that had become of Seto Kaiba pounced free of the cave shadows like a lion and lurched to a stop that nearly unseated the Pharaoh upon his back as they arrived at the waterfall's edge. I felt my host become attentive to my comings and goings once more as his beloved Pharaoh and the reincarnation of the High Priest he privately called his friend met our gaze.

"Do you believe me now?" The Pharaoh questioned with amusement before casting his gaze outward. Despite his steady words his manner stirred my host's concern once more. The Pharaoh's cheeks were unnaturally reddened with heat even while his body shivered as though cold.

Seto Kaiba huffed in reply. He appeared to think nothing of it.

It was with reverence that the Pharaoh did survey the view sprawling before him in every direction, while his mount merely snorted again and craned his head over the precipitous drop he now stood before as the water rushed between his talons to throw itself over the cliff and into the oasis below. He scoffed through his muzzle and slowly raised up his wings.

"Don't do it." the Pharaoh cautioned tonelessly over the roar of the waterfall before them. "There must be a better way down."

Seto Kaiba tilted his head to the side and sneered back at the Pharaoh. The narrowing of his eyes and flashing of fangs was different to a normal beast's. His maw pricked upwards at the edges. Mahad corrected me. The expression the dragon wore was not a baring of teeth, but a mischievous smirk. Under the circumstances, my host found that even more questionable. The Pharaoh's mistrustful expression echoed his champion's sentiment.

"_Don't do what?" _The dragon cooed back, the monstrous tone lilting and nearly playful. I did not understand the meaning of his grunts and growls, yet somehow my host did.

"You'll kill yourself if your wing fails." The Pharaoh told him without a doubt, haughtily crossing his arms as he did so. "We're too high up. Obviously so. Even diving from this height would be foolhardy."

A deep hum reverberated from Seto Kaiba's chest and he nodded along with a dipping of his head as though agreeing, even while his talons inched toward the rim of the tunnel's mouth and curled around it firmly.

"_Correction: 'Us', I'll kill 'us'. Get it right, Pharaoh." _He grunted and then shook the birds resting beside me from their nests with a boisterous bellowing roar that he threw at the clouds above in challenge.

"Kaiba!" A moment to right himself and secure his legs around the dragon's middle was all Seto Kaiba allowed the Pharaoh before lunging snake-like from the mouth of the cave and into the open sky; his rider's jaw clenching and eyes going wide as he did so.

The sun branded his wings bright white as he opened them wide and caught the wind effortlessly, easily beating them to soar on an updraft of warm air as though he had been born with wings upon his back and not only just acquired them. Even to one such as me who knew nothing of these boys, the dragon's joy was obvious. His mouth curled in glee and a sound that may once of been deep laughter echoed from the depths of his body as the monster threw his head back and barked many times with amusement. Atop his back the Pharaoh chuckled, intuitively smoothing his body to sit flat against the monster's back as the beast tested himself, flying a circle around the oasis like a victorious charioteer and experimentally spinning and rolling in mid air for the apparent pleasure of it.

I could feel the smile of my host as he watched, though it did not break through my lips. Seto Kaiba spiraled through the air toward the oasis, pulling up at the last moment to fly just a hair's width above the water's surface. The Pharaoh's chuckles became true laughter every bit as loud and mirthful as his mount's as he leaned over the side of the beast's back to run his fingers through it, creating a long wake in the otherwise calm stillness of the oasis as Seto Kaiba flew its length. Seeing the two of them get along pleased Mahad. I did not know why.

Seto Kaiba pivoted in the air abruptly, climbing back up high into the sky with a pounding of his wings and between wing beats the Pharaoh's expression softened from hardy enjoyment to a warm and gentle delight as he watched the dragon beneath him perform and rollick in the sky. His featured sharpened into a smirk of pleasure, hiding the gentler face as Seto Kaiba's pale neck twisted around to glance back at the Pharaoh as if to briefly check on the boy astride his back. Or taunt him. Seeing his rider's confidence the dragon put on a burst of speed to fly a knot in the air, the Pharaoh beginning to laugh once more as the aerial feat turned him upside-down for but a moment.

Watching them... was strange.

Here, like this, it was difficult to wish them the ill will necessary to complete my task.

I wondered if that had been my host's intent.

I ruffled my feathers and settled down more comfortably onto my ledge. Let them them cavort and frisk. For now I would merely watch. My patience may yet be rewarded. Once they were done playing they would finally have chance to use the dragon's flight to spirit themselves to my master and hand him his next defeat. It was an outcome worth waiting for.

The dragon's eyes slide back to his passenger once more for just a moment before he curled around himself to draw a second loop in the sky and then a third as the Pharaoh's clear enjoyment of the ride vindicated his antics. Abruptly the sounds of Seto Kaiba's baying guffaws deepened into a wordless questioning growl.

The odd noise attracted my host's attention and a spike of fear speared through his heart as the Pharaoh's face slackened.

His hold on his mount grew lax.

Within but a second he slid from the beast's pale back and plummeted limply through the air toward the earth below.

* * *

**AN: **With the COVID-19 virus shutting so many people behind closed doors I imagine quite a few of you are binge-reading through fanfiction to pass the time. If you find yourself thinking about this one sometime after you've finished reading it then it would mean a lot if you could pop back and throw me a review. Many thanks to everyone who has already left one for this story. They really mean a lot to me!

Also on the subject of COVID-19, the next chapter is going to deal with a character experiencing sickness and fever. I've been building up to it since very early in this fic and awkwardly this is where the chapter falls in the story, but I appreciate the timing of it might seem in bad taste.


	21. Chapter 21

**AN, April 4th: **I was editing some chapters the other day and it looks like I accidentally re-uploaded chapter 7 twice as both chapter 6 and 7, so if you read this story for the first time over the first few days of April then chapter 6 may have been temporarily missing - which is especially embarrassing because it's basically the chapter that sets up the whole plot. I've fixed that now. Sorry for any confusion!

* * *

**Kaiba**

This was flying. This, and nothing else. There was no comparison.

My jet was quicker, but the wind didn't sting my skin or howl in my ears from inside of the cockpit. My airship had been more comfortable and could sustain higher altitudes for longer but to hell with comfort! The feeling of the air through Blue-Eyes' scales; the strong rhythm of it's heart in my chest pumping in time to my wing beats as I climbed higher into the sky; it was damn near godly. The muscles still felt alien and they ached with the effort but it was a good burn, like the afterglow of an intense workout. Even with holograms I'd never recapture this feeling. It was a shot of pure adrenaline - the boost so overwhelming it wiped out everything else in existence. I couldn't even feel Atem on my back anymore, though I could hear him laughing as if he was in the seat behind me on a roller coaster.

He had no business being that stupidly short while also having a voice that deep.

His laughter carried over the wind and my own growl of amusement. The tone was much richer than I'd been able to replicate with my AI clone. I listened to it as closely as I could through my dragon's ears, trying to commit the timbre and pitch to memory as one laugh rolled into another. Abruptly the rhythm of it was broken. His laughter hitched oddly, climbing in pitch and softness to sound far away and slightly hysterical. I glanced to him on my back.

He looked flushed. The air at this altitude was cold, but drops of sweat still raced down his cheek and dripped from his chin onto the thick folds of the cape that hung across his neck. That wasn't right.

"Atem?"

In pseudo slow-motion his eyelids lowered halfway and his gaze became dull, unfocused. He wavered in place a little, the ridiculous yellow stalks of hair that were so eager to defy gravity swaying with him and then wilting. The pressure of his thighs against my back eased off and his body began to droop like a dying plant. My wingspan was too large and my wings were too heavy – I couldn't change their angle in time to right him against me. As the final note of his eerie laughter turned silent he slipped from my back like a stringless puppet and fell off of me, straight down through the sky.

He was out of the range of my claws before I could react and the tail of this body was still difficult to control – great for smacking him with, not great for anything that needed any degree of finesse. I ended up lashing him across the forehead with it instead of catching him.

While flying Blue-Eyes' body came with a completely different set of instincts and every single one of them roared at me to stop as I pulled my wings toward my body mid-wing beat and pressed them to my back, streamlining my form. The effect was somewhere between a free-fall and a dive as I plunged vertically down through the air toward the ground, chasing after the purple of Atem's cape as it snarled up his body and hurtled downward.

I beat my wings several times to close the distance between us; the thermals that I had used to increase my altitude working against me as I tried to cut through them. With each second I got closer to him as we both got closer to the ground, but unless I could get him to wake up and grab me that was the least of my problems. I shouted at him as I was finally able to stretch out my neck within range, the pissed off roar having no effect. Atem's features remained slack and his half-lidded eyes didn't even twitch despite the wind rushing into them.

Great. Just great.

I snarled to myself, using one last wing beat to angle Blue-Eyes' body against him and within arms length. My dragons were powerful engines of destruction; they weren't built for purpose or equipped with any tools for daintily plucking unconscious midgets out of the sky. My claws scrambled against Atem's chest; trying to hook into the paper-thin fabric of his tunic without sinking into his skin, all while being slapped at by the wind rushing through his stupid cape. That would have made for a much easier target, but clamping down on it might accidentally hang him, or the inertia of grabbing onto it without properly supporting his body could break his spine.

My talons floundered, managing to snag a good amount of his tunic and cloak around the neckline before the material shredded against my claws. Shit.

There was no choice left.

Abandoning his clothes I pushed Blue-Eyes' arms under his armpits. I had no way of holding him; not without seriously damaging him. The bone structure of my dragon's elbow and wrists didn't work the same way as a humans; they moved more like an animals and lacked a lot of the rotation and flexibility needed to keep him braced. There wasn't any other choice. I crushed his body to my own torso, lashed my tail around one of his ankles and clamped my neck around his opposite shoulder to keep him locked in place.

The wind roared through my wings as I opened them as wide as possible, holding them out to slow our decent, catching the currents in them like parachutes. We slowed – substantially, but it was too little too late. We'd already lost too much altitude and gained too much momentum. The ground was rushing up to us.

I was about to find out just how thick Blue-Eye's scales really were. I coiled my neck and tail tighter and braced.

The impact bent one of Blue-Eyes' wings back on itself and even my most muted yell of pain managed to rip out as a scream. The friction as I collided with the floor was so hot it scalded me; it felt like my fingernails were being wrenched backwards and yanked off as it flayed the scales from my tail and knocked the breath out of my lungs. I skidded and then lurched and slowly rolled to a stop, cutting a deep trench into the ground behind me like a crater left behind by a meteor strike. All of my muscles twitched in a state of raw agony.

"Arg!"

One wing flailed weakly and only the tip of my tail spasmed as I tried to thrash the length of it around. I couldn't move. Why the fuck couldn't I move?!

My claws twitched a little as they started to go numb, digging into something meaty. Atem moaned, which I guess meant he was still alive by some measure of the word, until I lost all motor control on this body and crushed him to death that is. Pushing him away from me was harder than I thought it would be; all of Blue-Eyes' body was broken and its arms had hardly ever been its strongest feature to begin with, just a mechanism for delivering claws. The effort of doing so made my vision turn black and the relief was almost instant...

...

"...Kaiba... wake-up..." I could feel his breath as Atem murmured against my torso, only half-conscious at best.

"...Gn..."

I didn't remember closing my eyes... I opened them, only enough to squint... there was no point in wasting energy. The sky was orange. It had been blue just a minute ago, and now it was orange. I must have blacked out. That was the only explanation for it.

Something long and dark stretched out across the ground in front of me, loosely hanging over Atem's side. It was wrapped in leather, or PVC or something similar - something glossy enough to reflect the dusky tones of the sunset. On the end was something pale and familiar that twitched at my command.

I was staring at my arm, and my hand.

Blue-Eyes' and me must have separated.

All that power, that freedom, the elation of actually being a real damn dragon was ... gone. Just as I'd been getting into it too... figures. My arm and hand seemed fine, still much in the same condition they'd been in before I got fused; a bit dirty and sliced up but otherwise okay. They didn't look damaged but my Duel Disk still was. It was blinking some warning at me.

The card log obnoxiously mocked me with the news that my Blue-Eyes had been sent to the graveyard, but that wasn't the worst of it.

'Death Counter 2/3 added.' the readout read.

Of all the stupid bullshit... What a ridiculous way to die.

Moving was currently an unnecessary operation so I didn't bother despite the embarrassment of being remade right where my fused body had previously been. I was lying on the floor parallel to Atem, my arm was still draped over him, a strange trembling feeling reverberating from him up the length of it. He was just inches away from being pressed up against my chest and from being so close I could see beads of sweat form on his forehead and drip down the side of his face and watch his teeth chatter like we were in the arctic circle instead of the desert.

He was staring at me dully.

His eyes were far from the polished and penetrating ones I was comfortable with. They looked glassy. The flush of red across his cheeks I'd noticed was now a deep blush that his dark skin didn't hide.

"Kaiba." He blinked at me sluggishly.

"What?" I replied testily, my voice still sounding gravelly from being a dragon. He was so out of it. I'd never seen him like this. A little sharpness came back into his eyes, his wet gaze trying to focus on me as I sat up, waiting for him to answer. I was sore, too sore to happily waste my time waiting around for Atem to get around to answering.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I pressed. I didn't bother to put in the additional effort needed to raise my voice. I wasn't sure why I felt I needed to shout in the first place. I didn't like him being so close, that was probably why.

He didn't come up with a reply, instead he just shook feverishly.

I usually wouldn't do this, but he was lying limp on the floor like a dead fish and didn't seem to be capable of lifting up his own head, forget anything else. I slowly moved my hand toward his forehead, giving him ample time to react if he wanted to even if it was just to tell me to knock it off. I lowered it beneath his hairline and felt for his temperature.

"Damn it." He was burning up.

He hummed contentedly as though he'd been presented with an appealing business plan and lazily lifted his hand to cover the one I was pressing against his forehead. I tried not to react at the touch. The difference in our current body temperatures probably made me feel cool against his skin. I exhaled between my teeth and took a look around our surroundings, already knowing this was going to be troublesome as he quivered against the ground in my peripheral vision.

This wasn't something I was equipped for.

Mokuba got sick sometimes but it was rare and he always bounced back quickly. Both of us had good immune systems. We'd always been the last to catch it and first to recover whenever a bout of flu or some cold went around the orphanage. It'd made us stronger. Beyond that, we were Kaibas. We had instant access to our own private doctor and any medication imaginable, be it illicit or otherwise. All this added up to the inscrutable fact that I was no one's nurse maid.

So what was the priority for a fever? Biologically speaking, shade and proper hydration was always a strong start for any sort of illness, and I suppose if this was Mokuba instead I'd probably tell him to go to bed with a cold compress. A tree beside the bank of the oasis waters made as good a place as any shade-wise, and I could carry Atem that far without any issue if he couldn't walk. He was staring at the sky like he'd never seen clouds before so I guessed that it would be necessary.

"Hey." I snapped my fingers in front of him.

His listless eyes peeled away from the stratosphere and met mine, though he frowned a little to communicate that he didn't like me snapping my fingers at him like a dog, just like my Pharaoh hologram had done.

"I'm gonna pick you up." I told him, clearly. Laying out my intent for him because if he struggled I wasn't sure I wouldn't abruptly recall one of his stupid speeches and drop him out of spite.

He frowned like he was remembering something before opening his mouth and pissing me off. "I'm the Pharaoh, and I forbid you from picking me up." He replied, tone suddenly so level and serious it was as though he was faking the fever.

What? Why? What a dumb thing to be weird about. And he had the nerve to lecture me about being too proud. Bad luck for him though; there was nothing on earth he could have said that would have made me want to pick him up more.

He anticipated that.

Despite his verbal protest, struggling against me was apparently beneath him. I hooked one hand under his knees and the other at his back and lifted. It was easy. Atem weighed almost nothing. He sighed against my neck but otherwise managed not to complain for the twelve steps it took me to set him down by a tree. His head lolled as I propped him up against it. It was weird seeing him so limp. Everything about him was always so poised and angular. 'Regal' was the word, but like hell I'd ever tell him that.

Almost so quietly I didn't hear it he moaned in pain and his hand moved to his side to absently ghost his fingers across the spot where the red of his blood had stained the purple of his makeshift belt.

Suddenly I was suspicious of his 'just a cut'.

I smacked his hand away and untied the fabric. He replied with a fuzzy glare of reprimand but no real form of protest. I already knew that the wound was going to be both gross and bad as the fabric stuck to his side like adhesive tape and I had to tug it to dislodge it. He hissed through his teeth a little as it came away.

"Urgh." The smell alone. "So, 'just a cut' huh?" I sarcastically sneered at Atem.

Turned out he was just as bad at playing nurse maid as I was.

Without the sash to cover it the span of the injury became clear. The cut on his side had half kitted itself together over time but oozed with pus. The area around it was red and swollen with tiny spider-like veins angrily raised up against the surface of his skin. I felt myself cringe at the sight of the gore. This was Pegasus and his damn disgusting empty eye socket all over again. Why the hell did he have to show me that? Holding my gag-reflex in check I tossed away the cloth with the scab of his infected blood still clinging to it.

It was so disgusting to look at but it explained the fever at least.

"You have an infection." I told him, I wasn't a doctor but I was sure of the diagnosis. "Try dodging next time."

Atem hummed in agreement, half-asleep as he began to fade back into unconsciousness against the tree with his head slumped on his chest. I tapped him on the cheek to keep him awake; several more beads of sweat raced down his forehead and his eyebrows pulsed with irritation as I did so. Fuck him. If I had to be awake and deal with this then he did too.

What the hell even happens if you die in your own afterlife? Does the world just disappear with everything in it? Including me? As if I'd just let that happen.

"I'm taking this off." I told him, grabbing the swath of tattered purple fabric around his neck that kept his cape in place. My Blue-Eyes' claws had almost ripped through it anyway. It took only a good grip and a bit of brute force to finish the job, the sweat-soaked fibers coming apart at his clavicle. I pushed the two halves of the cloak backwards over his shoulders and it fell away from him to pool dead on the floor.

With the cape cut free I could see he was wearing some sort of golden choker and then a looser necklace that hung above his chest. I'd thought it was all a single piece. How much jewellery did he need? "We get it already, you're a Pharaoh." I muttered, not really expecting him to hear or answer. It would have hardly mattered normally, but I needed to get all this garbage off of him and after lifting the Puzzle over his head I had no idea where to start. I pulled him forward and away from the tree he was resting against to get a better look at the back of his neck, hoping for some sort of latch or fastener for either piece.

"Why are you undressing me?"Atem mumbled, not bothering to open his eyes, just leaning into me and resting his chin on my shoulder like he was thinking of getting comfortable there. I gritted my teeth, not appreciating the suggestion that this situation was somehow in my fucking favor.

"You have a fever. I'm getting all this crap off you so I can bring down your temperature." I bit out as an explanation.

His fingers retreated to rest over his right collarbone and fumbled around for something for a moment, before deciding it was too much effort and delegating the job to me.

"Here." His shivering hand slowly met mine, his still strangely-dark fingers corded around my own and then guided my hand to the space he'd been swatting at ineffectually. He went back to resting against me as I tried to mimic what he had been aiming to do, finding a small catch on the underside of the looser necklace. It came apart with a bit of pressure and I yanked it from his chest. The choker fastened in the same place, though it was a tighter fit to get to the latch and I could feel Atem's carotid artery beat against my fingers as I tried to work the fastener free.

"Magnificent..." He muttered absently, his adam's apple bobbed against my shoulder as he spoke and I had no idea what he was talking about, or what he even thought was going on right now.

"Kaiba?" he added belatedly, wanting my attention for some reason.

"Just shut up." I countered, hoping to put the next conversation down before it could start.

He hummed in response as I plunged a scrap of his ridiculous cape into the water beside us. The oasis looked clean enough for that. For lack of an actual cold compress a torn up damp rag slapped across his head and neck would have to do. There was a deep sigh of relief as I dropped the wet weight across his forehead, muttering "Hope your tacky tiara is waterproof."

Alright. Now what? I could clean the cut, but treating the surface-level injury wasn't going to be enough. He had an infection so the problem was already inside of his body, probably racing around his bloodstream like a slip n' slide. What he really needed was medicine.

So a card then? If they were determined to occupy the uncanny valley between being my holograms and being actual 'magical' entities that function as described, then maybe one would do the job. It was a stretch, and because we could only play each card once it was also a gamble. If it didn't work each card pulled out of our decks decreased our ability to adapt to future situations – or mitigate future fuck ups. There wasn't a choice. Risky as it was to potentially waste them I was even less keen on my chances of happening by an old timey Egyptian dispensary for a round of antibiotics.

Blue Medicine and Red Medicine were in my deck. They came to mind.

Normally I wouldn't have bothered with either of these cards. I only had them to balance out our life points and facilitate playing Green Medicine as part of my original master plan. If they didn't work is was hardly a big loss.

Fine.

Letting him lean against me was easier now that I had a plan in place.

"You're gonna owe me for this, Pharaoh." I told him, seriously.

One of his arms coiled around the back of my neck like a noose to stop his chin slipping off of my shoulder as he absent-mindedly hummed back in reply. That felt weird. I didn't like people touching my head or neck. I had only one barber on staff in the mansion who had the best job security in the whole of Domino because he was the only person I could stand touching my skull.

I concentrated on not following up on the instinct to shake Atem's fingers away.

"You were a magnificent dragon." He decided to tell me, emphasizing each word as though it was the most important piece of information in the world to date.

That took me off-guard. I had no idea why but it made me blush and I hated that my body was still capable of doing that without my permission. The only good thing was he was far too out of it to notice.

"Lie down and stop saying stupid things!" I snapped at him. Stupid, and embarrassing things. "You're sick. You're not thinking straight!" I wish he'd hurry up and get his head back together because this whole situation was just surreal. My bones felt like they wanted to jump out of my skin and I had no idea how to quantify that.

"You dare to tell me my own mind?" He countered, raising his voice like he was trying to scold me. He clearly had no idea what was going on right now.

"You're feverish, probably delirious and were unconscious just a minute ago. So yeah," I paused for effect. "I dare." I scoffed and pressed him back down to lie back against the tree by his shoulders. The cloth on his forehead slipped a bit as I did. He caught it and readjusted it back into place with a natural deftness that not even bacterial infection could sap away. His other arm flapped to the wound at his side and he craned his neck a little to get a look at it, like that was going to help.

"Just relax and let me take care of you." I snapped at him. 'This', I should have said 'this'. Why did I say 'you'? That made it sound all personal.

"I didn't know you cared so much, Kaiba." Atem taunted, catching the slip. His jaw weakly twitched into a mocking little grin.

"Tch! I just don't need the thing I'm trying to work on writhing around on the floor like a half-dead rat." I bit back. This is why machines were so much better than people, and why I would always enjoy working with them more. Atem nodded in a barely there inclination of his head and tried to relax back against the tree.

"I play the magic card Blue Medicine" I announced, to apparently no one since Atem was barely coherent at best. The image of the card flashed into the 'played' log on my Duel Disk as a matching green vase identical to the one depicted on the card appeared beside me, along with a crystal cup. It was bigger than I'd thought it would be.

The liquid on the card looked like water, but as I poured it out it was a gaudy shade of bright blue. Not water then. I made it a personal philosophy never to drink anything florescent or damn near close to it. I was glad I was gonna be using this on Atem and not myself.

The medicine sloshed out of the glass as I tried to pour with one hand while keeping him leaning against the tree with the other, having to splay my fingers across his abdomen to keep him in place. I could feel the contours of his surprisingly well-defined abdominal muscles twitch against my fingers through the thin material of his tunic as he wriggled like that was going to throw me off. It was a lame attempt but feeling his six-pack churn under my hand was distracting so I moved my grip to his chin, tilting his head at an angle that seemed about right and resting lip of the glass against his mouth.

"You better swallow this." I threatened, even though he was now unconscious.

If he didn't then blocking an airway was a risk but the human body was an efficient machine and there wasn't a system that I couldn't figure out if I wanted to. I was betting all this would take is the right angle of his mouth in relation to the Medicine and maybe a little extra pressure applied to the throat. The deglutition reflex would kick in to protect the rest if I applied the liquid in small enough increments.

He stirred a little and muttered something incomprehensible but didn't open his eyes.

"Fine." I bit out to myself, irritated at him for not coming around.

I nudged the glass into his mouth and tipped it slightly, trying to send the medicine directly to the back of his throat. True to form he decided to thwart my strategy. The moment the liquid hit his tongue he grimaced at the taste like a fucking child and reflexively coughed it back out into my face.

"You punk!" I wished he was awake so I could shout at him.

Gross. I spat onto grass to get the taste out of my mouth.

The stuff tasted awful; like budget cough medicine with a taste deliberately made as vile as possible to stop delinquents from buying it in bulk and getting high.

He smirked in his sleep as if aware of just how much of a pain in my ass he was. He wasn't going to get the best of me while he was fucking unconscious.

I threw the potion as far back into his throat as possible and as he opened his mouth to eject it I sealed it shut with my hand, the only tool I could think of in the heat of the moment. He frowned as I vacuum sealed his big mouth shut and tried to squirm around it, so I grabbed his jaw and tilted his head back to give him no choice and then finally he swallowed the damn stuff.

Looks like it wasn't going to be a waste of a card after all. Though it was impractical and unhygienic it did the job. The Medicine went to work on gross cut on his side with an immediate effect that seemed like it hurt – or that was the impression I got from his grimace and the fizzy hissing noise. His skin sizzled, a slight smoke that smelt like disinfectant wafting back up at me as it purged his wound and knitted the flesh back together. The angry red swelling around the wound soothed, gradually returning his skin to its natural bronze color that still didn't look totally right, but I was getting used to. Even his expression relaxed, like he actually could have been asleep instead of knocked out.

I'd never seen him unconscious before. I bet Yugi and his idiotic friends hadn't either.

It was a strange and obvious thought. Of course I'd never seen Atem unconscious – up until coming to this dimension I'd never 'seen' him at all. I could edit out all the sweat and deep breathing and other symptoms of sickness in my mind and then apply that data to my hologram back in the real world.

I sat there next to him watching him rest and was half way through planning out the various algorithms I'd need to control the sleep-awake cycle for the AI, before realizing how moronic the idea was. A dueling hologram didn't need to know how to sleep. What an asinine waste of my mental energy. I had to pay close attention to my thoughts every time the Pharaoh was around or else they spun off on useless tangents like that.

Despite how obvious it was his body was overheating it was his relentless shivering in my peripheral vision brought me back to the here and now. I would have thrown his cloak back over him but it was covered in dirt and his back sweat and it wasn't going to dry out any time soon - the temperature was dropping too quickly as the sun set.

I had my lighter. If there was anything half way decent to burn around here I could make a fire. I snagged it out of my coat pocket, just to make sure it hadn't been crushed or something equally moronic in the crash. My other hand went for my cigarette case, until something snared my wrist and yanked on it mid-motion.

"The hell?" I pulled back, trying to get the weird green coil off of me. It didn't budge.

I was on my feet, standing over Atem with one foot on either side of his body ready for whatever this next thing was in less than a second. Atem moaned and stirred, shaking his head back and forth but didn't do much other than that - which was best for the both of us while I was straddling him.

She announced herself with a simpering, malicious giggle.

"Teleia." I growled without needing a second guess. This was getting boring.

I stared at the growth wrapped around my arm, making out the sharp pointed leaves and jagged barbs lining it even in the twilight. She'd summoned in something new and I had no idea what or when. Curse this wrecked Duel Disk. I fought it, twisting my arm to get out of its hold but instead of breaking free it lurched upwards, dragging me into the air. It lifted me over and away from Atem, further away from the shoreline into a thicket of the oasis's undergrowth and eight more vines shot from the foliage to immobilize me spread eagle in mid air, bound at my wrists and ankles as well as my waist and shoulders. For such a deviant she didn't have much originality.

Teleia fixed me with a lewd stare from beside her new Rose Tentacles. I must have been losing my touch if she thought I'd be intimidated by such a pitiful look.

Clearly she had something big in mind, judging by her sadistic cackle. She'd brought her whole entourage. Bird of Roses screeched behind her and flapped its wings as her Botanical Lion prowled back and forth like it wanted to eat me alive.

"My my my, I should be thanking you for your kindness, Ano-" She didn't look away from me, but she clearly wasn't addressing me either. Who was she talking to? "-You have led me straight to them." There was no one else here. No one I could see. "Now go away. Your delicate sensibilities will not like what I have planned." I wouldn't have figured it out if she hadn't messed up. For just a single second her eyes darted over to a palm a few feet away. The slip-up was so quick she probably hadn't even known she'd made it, but I caught it. She was talking to a fat white bird. I'd seen it before.

Her monster new distracted me. The tendril it'd slithered around my shoulders tensed, constricting around my coat collar until it snagged the base of my throat and my senses honed in deliriously on the smell of non-existent leather and the chafe of a cold metal buckle against my neck.

"Once more and again we meet. If we continue like this, tongues may start to wag." Teleia droned, "And the Gods have been good enough to return you to your original body." Her tongue darted out of her sleazy mouth to wet her lips. "And what a body it is."

"Get this thing off me!" I demanded.

I damn well didn't care that the thorns were digging into my skin, or that wrestling my hand free and grabbing it made me bleed – the thing coiling around my neck needed to go. Right. Now. I yanked it away from my throat and pulled it apart with every bit of my strength, ripping and shredding apart the tough internal fibers holding the vine together with a set of audible snaps.

"Such a strong one. I shall enjoy this more than you know." Teleia cooed appraising me and tapping her finger against her lip as I scowled at her. My throat was off limits – especially to this twisted bitch. She waved her false concern away with a casual declaration. "Fortunately, my Rose Tentacles is rather... hardy." The vine tentacle I'd snapped in half regrew from both ends, her monster sprouting new limbs and doubled down on me with twice the pressure.

Shit. I fought back with whatever maneuverability I had left but it was pointless. Struggling against the damn vines was doing nothing except wasting calories. I cut my losses and went still, fixing her with my darkest glare - the one that promised her that after I was free I was coming for her and nothing in this dimension or any other would save her from me.

"Such a handsome expression." She purred. I gritted my teeth as she stepped up to me, her monster lowering me down to her through the air so she could stroke one finger over my face. "I would have you know, my Mark of the Rose was meant for you, not the little Pharaoh." She taunted, flicking my nose like I was some childhood crush. Meeting Ishizu ever again was going to be damn uncomfortable after seeing the lecherous leer that crossed over Teleia's face next. "But I can make do without it." Her expression was sadistic and filthy, the same as one of Gozaburo's. She glanced to the ugly cephalopodic features that made up her monster's face and nodded at it.

Rose Tentacles tightened its limbs around me, really living up to the card's name as the vines shackled my wrists and ankles like the arms of a squid, wrapping themselves around my knees, biceps and thighs. She wasn't done. With a flick of her fingers the pathetic flower monster dragged my legs apart and her hand slipped between them to paw at my inner thigh like a gold-digging mistress. There was basic, primitive sort of interest in the follow-through that my body reacted to, but it wasn't enough to get me hot and bothered. I stamped the feeling out on reflex. It was effortless. I'd had years of practice.

I'd accidentally walked in on Mokuba's perverted cartoons once or twice. That was enough for me to suspect where Teleia thought this whole scene was going to go. It had been weird to realize my 'tween' brother was more interested in 'that' sort of stuff than I was, but speaking mechanically it wasn't going to work if that's what she had planned. The necessary components weren't in the right position and mine damn well never would be, but she didn't know that and just like with Gozaburo what she didn't know I could turn to my advantage. I just needed to postulate a solution.

Her fingers dug into the meat of my thigh. It made me hiss uncomfortably before I could stop myself. It was a fucking relief Atem was out cold and couldn't watch this. Having him be so ill now seemed like an advantage.

That gave me the idea.

A plan clicked into place; all the pieces coming together quickly as if I was reading from a blueprint in my brain. All I'd need was one single card, and time enough to play it.

"Is this really it, you snake?" I baited, smirking at her, "Tie me up and try to have your way with me? That's your master plan?" I laughed in her face as her lusty expression turned wary. "I thought you were supposed to be killing us – does your boss know you've gone rogue on him just to get your rocks off?" I goaded.

I needed her up close and personal to seal this deal. Based on how she'd been throwing herself at me every other time we'd met I assumed that was going to be easy, but I must have given the game away somehow. She took one calculating look into my eyes and sensed my sudden eagerness. The abrupt one-eighty put her on high alert. Teleia took a step backward to reassess me, even as Rose Tentacles bound me even more tightly in place.

It figured that now I actually wanted her all over me she was actually showing some self-restraint.

That didn't matter; I had to lure her back in no matter what it took.

I didn't know what to do exactly – my 'accelerated education' had included variations on this theme, but this exact situation hadn't ever been laid out in front of me in textbook format and I'd never felt the need to do an independent study. I glanced over to Atem, just to make sure he was still unconscious and couldn't possibly watch the debasing show I was about to put on. It wouldn't be the first time the Pharaoh had seen me put on a sickly sweet act to get what I wanted- or maybe it would- it was hard to tell how much attention he'd been paying outside of opportunities to pop out of Yugi's head and spring his penalty games on people back in those early days. It didn't matter, that was a long time ago and I didn't want him witnessing anything so humiliating now.

He was still exactly the same as before; panting, sweating and shivering but with no signs of coming to. Whatever. I'd make this quick anyway. There was no way I was risking him waking up and catching me in this next pathetic little act.

"Come on then; let's get this over with." I demanded, straining against the tentacles of her monster. "But I'm gonna need my hands-" I flexed my fingers, curling them at her suggestively, hating the grotesque insinuation. "-If you want me at my best."

She wasn't buying it - I could see it in her eyes, but the performance must have been provocative. She bit her lip and eyed my digits with an intensity that made my skin crawl.

Her interest was obvious. It was all over her face like I was dangling a rare card just out of her reach. Teleia licked her lips and sauntered back to me, leaning her body flush against mine and blowing hot air across my ear before whispering into it' "I find it difficult to believe a boy with reactions as prudish as yours suddenly knows his way around a woman's body."

Tch! Who was she calling a 'boy'! I swallowed back the indignation of that and tried to copy the barely there chaste whisper she was going for. My voice came out low and gritty.

"Let me go and you'll find out." I sounded ridiculous.

She eyed me with a lascivious enthusiasm. "Seduction, is it? Now now, you see, I know the game you are trying to play." She tapped my chin with her finger, once, twice, like she was considering it all. "It is a risky one. Very risky indeed." Her eyes trailed up to the vines around my wrist keeping my hands in lock-down. "I've devoured many men far better at it than you-"

"-Try me. I'm good at games." I interrupted, not caring or needing to know exactly where she was going with that story. "And I play to win." I always had.

A bubble of dark genuine laughter too grim to call a giggle burst from her mouth. "Is that so? Well you have aroused my curiosity." She complimented, rolling the word 'aroused' around on her tongue like a pig in mud. "So let us play." Teleia hissed into my ear. With a flick of her fingers Rose Tentacles unraveled itself from my right hand. Just my right hand.

She went straight for my abdomen like she was going to disembowel me and I went straight for my Duel Disk. Running around the desert in a flight suit was about as stupid an idea as ideas came. I'd been cooking alive in the damn thing since the moment I got here, but finally wearing it started working in my favor. Her hunt for a buckle or latch to get it open with gave me the precious few seconds I needed to call my card out and set it face down behind her while she obliviously played 'find the zip'.

Now I just had to keep her interested enough not to look back over her shoulder and notice it hovering there until I could spring my trap.

Her monsters called out to her in screeches and roars of warning, but her focus was on me. They didn't stand a chance as the 'zzzzzzrp' sound of a zip being pulled down its track drowned out everything else from her attention. She was so single minded it was embarrassing.

The tentacles of her monster actually helped. Being strung up like this stopped me from straight up smacking her on instinct as she pulled apart my suit and attacked my abs with her tongue, laving it over them like they were meant for her - which they fucking weren't. Her hand found my crotch, ghosting over it with false coyness, until she felt my reaction... Or lack of one. She grinned up at me, finally noticing the calls of her monsters now that she wasn't so enthralled with her task.

"If this is your 'best', then I will simply have to skip forward and consume you immediately instead." Teleia purred.

Shit. I had years of conditioning. Every stupid sexual impulse that she threw at me I'd batted away without even needing to think about in some subconscious game of hormonal table tennis, but it was time to put down my racket and catch the damn ball.

"Skraaaawwwww!"

"Roaaaaourrr!"

I gripped her chin with my hand as she turned to see what her monsters were calling about and turned her face back up to mine, trying to pull her mouth towards me. It stalled her, right up until she swatted my hand away, slashing at my face at the same time.

"Ghn." It stung.

"Such a shame. A true shame" Teleia drawled, "After chasing you all this way I was hoping for so much more. You made for such delectable prey, but perhaps the Gods blessed me by eliminating you as my Master's new host-" Her lips curled into a rabid smile. "- as I refuse to waste my time on impotent men."

"Tch!" I was losing her attention.

Damn it. This wasn't working. Why the hell wasn't it working?

Ishizu or Isis or whoever was hardly unattractive, even with the deranged way Teleia had reconfigured her usual look. Her hair was dark and glossy, her cleavage was decent - Isis had maybe a bit more than I remembered being a thing on Ishizu; through the damage Teleia had done to her clothing I could see her breasts spill out of her ye olde undergarments like she was wearing a size too small. That was conventionally erotic. Her figure was trim, it curved in and out at all the right places, though her dress clung slightly too tightly across her waist like she was mildly bloated or -

And just like that whatever arousal I'd managed to build up slipped through my fingers, even as the heel of Teleia's hand pressed against my junk. Think of something else; quickly! When was even the last time I felt aroused?

A flash of sensation hit me with a jolt of electricity as I remembered back in the cave. What was it that had set me off back then?

Atem, terrified.

I called up the image I'd made in my mind as easily as summoning a hologram from my Duel Disk and every bit as vivid. I watched his toned chest rise and fall in panic, his eyes slicing around as tiny pin pricks and I felt... almost nothing.

Not that then. Fine.

I swapped out some of the assets, just letting my imagination take the lead. It replaced down-turned lips with his signature smirk and frightened eyes with his usual red laser pointers. The chunk of hair I'd clipped off the end of one of his blonde bangs was back and standing up as unnaturally erect as they always did. His dark skin was clean and his pale clothes were fresh, his Egyptian cosplay looking just like it had back in his palace; covering him in gold and a self-satisfied smugness. The new avatar re-positioned itself, confidently placing a hand on its narrow hips and watching me with some taunting amusement.

It was good. I could feel that. Why was it good? Atem didn't 'do it' for me. That was complete nonsense! I wasn't... So he couldn't – and he didn't. Shit. The more I thought about it the more the fucking weird fantasy Pharaoh started to break apart under my scrutiny. Fine. I'd have to deal whatever the hell was spurring this nonsensical little tangent later. For now I just focused on the feeling, no matter how shameful the object generating it was. It was still good, but it wasn't finished yet; something was missing.

Audio. What was even the point of imagining the Pharaoh without giving him the chance to run his mouth. My brain queried its internal database for some snippet to play back to me to finish the illusion.

"_I'm fond of you, Kaiba."_ It told me.

It felt like I'd jammed my finger into a wall socket. My body shuddered completely out of my control and a quart of blood that was more useful to me in my brain decided it had an urgent meeting to attend somewhere else. I hissed through my teeth, but this time not because I was in pain.

I still didn't know what he'd meant when he said that.

The phantom crossed into my personal space like it owned it and rubbed a copper hand against me, touching my -

"That's better." Teleia purred encouragingly.

"Shut up!"

She was already ruining it by being too tall, if she started yacking at me as well I'd definitely lose the image.

He rubbed his hand against me, firmly. His hand dragged my thighs further apart with an insistent push in a bid for better access and I could feel my pulse hammering under my flight suit's fly. His hands trailed up my torso, snagging my chin between his fingers and darting his tongue around my mouth. His pace was a bit quicker than I would have liked but this was... 'not bad'. I'd always found the idea of kissing and licking unpleasant but this wasn't half as disgusting as it should have been, considering someone else's mouth was on mine. His movements were almost punishing in intensity as he kept teasing my lips without ever coming close to landing the finishing blow. He was mocking me! I wished he'd just get on with it already.

"Atem." I growled.

"Oh?" a womanly voice chuckled darkly.

I crashed back to reality.

Teleia smashed her mouth against mine hard enough to chip a tooth, the fingers holding my jaw becoming crushing and she raked into my skin with her nails. I thrashed against her but I didn't know why so I forced myself to stop. This was what I'd been waiting for, after all.

My Duel Disk chimed as my trap card activated.

Teleia must have guessed something was up the moment my mouth smirked against hers. She pulled away from me like I was poisonous - and I was. She'd just realized that fact too late. A bridge of drool left behind by her sloppy make-out session broke between us as her eyes flicked over mine, trying to figure out what was about it to happen. Like that would help.

My trap card was quick to take hold.

With a wracking cough she bent double. Thick black ooze splattered onto the palms of her hands as she held them out in front of her.

"Mhahahah!" I laughed in her face.

"W- What is this?! What have you done!" She screamed. The eyes she'd stolen from Ishizu went wide and her pupils shrank until they were almost microscopic as her slimy guts pooled in her cupped hands.

"You've just activated my Crush Card Virus." I declared. Screw being touched up and fondled by some misplaced figment of my own imagination – this was my greatest pleasure!

I wasn't sure if playing the card on myself would work since I wasn't a dark type monster, but Saggi wasn't in my deck to take the hit this time. I threw my head back and roared with laughter at her pitiful panicked expression as the monsters at her back started exploding out of existence. Rose Tentacles gave me one final squeeze just to aggravate me before its vines started to disintegrate and it lost its grip on my body. Disentangling myself was easy as it fell apart. I rubbed my wrists and stepped away from it, watching it turn into dust at my feet; just like everything else that thought it had the better of me.

"Thanks to you the Virus has spread from my body into your deck, destroying every monster you have with more than fifteen thousand attack points." I explained, drinking in the familiar sight of my enemy's absolute terror as Teleia watched her Botanical Lion crash defeated onto the floor and her Bird of Roses be eagerly devoured by my Virus.

I could practically taste her fear as she hacked up another puddle of slime and it started leaking out of her nostrils and eyes like tar tears. "And as a monster yourself with a punishing two thousand five hundred attack points, I guess that includes you too." I narrowed my eyes and smirked at her.

"But wait. There's more-" I taunted, a victory rush of adrenaline soaking though every cell in my body as she tried to get a word in, only to be silenced by the river of bile pouring out of her mouth each time she opened it. Fitting. "-Since you and your boss are sharing the same deck, that also wipes out all of Anubis's monster too." It was master stroke.

Teleia's eyes brimmed with sludge, but somehow she could still make out her phony Duel Disk in the last few seconds before it melted off of her arm. I could see it in her face as it twisted in the understanding of utterly beaten she was. Every card of Anubis's side of the field blew apart, with the exception of the two face down cards that had been hanging around since game start. For them to have escaped the wrath of my Virus meant they either had to be traps, magic cards, or monsters too measly for my card to bother infecting. Insignificant.

"Game's over Teleia. You lose." They were finished – she and Anubis both. My Duel Disk might be half broken but that was nothing compared to the damage I'd just done to their deck. Now all I had to do was find her boss and deliver my killing blow.

Teleia just shrieked at me as the stuff started dribbling out of her ears and hell knows what other orifices I was spared from looking at. She'd been a tedious opponent, hardly worth my valuable time in the end, but it was a dramatic death at least.

As she choked out more and more her expression started to ease up and she staggered and stumbled until I had to snatch up her arm to keep her from falling over. By the end of it I was the only thing holding her up as the rest of her sagged down onto her knees and her hair closed around her head as heavy black curtains.

This was what I lived for.

**Atem**

My dream had been...strange. A blurred nightmare of indistinct proportions with only the central tenant of Kaiba held aloft in bondage and softly growling my name as memorable. Dreams were fleeting, fickle things that defied any real explanation even in Yugi's time so I excused the oddity, even as the image anchored itself in my mind.

The crackle and fitful spitting of a fire greeted me as I began to wake fully. The heat from it was a welcome guard against the chill in the air. The coolness breezed over my cheeks and neck before scattering harmlessly across an thin blanket covering me from the shoulders down. I tugged at it, lifting it toward my chin to cover my exposed skin and recognized what it was as the hem of it approached my nose. Kaiba's smell was all over it - the smell I had known him to carry from all of our few minutes in close quarters back in the living world without the adulteration of cigarettes or necromancy to stain it. It was strong, and sharp. Mint of some sort, but acrid in a way that stung the inside of my nose. Something artificial. I opened my eyes and confirmed my suspicion that it was Kaiba's coat draped over me, the collar of which I had been intently pulling further toward my face.

My arms felt too heavy as I tried brushing it back down and away from my nose so I turned my head to escape the aggressive scent instead. My body felt so peculiar. I was ill, I realized. Distant memories of being ill times before came back to me in a steady stream.

The stars twinkled above as silent sentries, stalwartly aloft over my head while a camp fire's glow warmed the earth to my side, almost too bright to stare comfortably at for any length of time with the pounding in my head. Kaiba had done well to assemble and light it so quickly. Across from me lay Isis, very much in need of a bath but sleeping soundly and breathing well from what I could tell.

Kaiba's voice cut through the calm and the quiet of the scene before it could settle with a steely declaration of "Teleia's dead."

His back was to me, poking at the camp fire in obvious boredom with a long piece of wood.

Apparently he could sense I was awake. Continuing to lie prone beneath his coat seemed inappropriate somehow, given the strength-based relationship we shared. My arms ached and my head swam uneasily as I pushed myself to sit up and watched Kaiba's coat slide from my chest to pool in my lap. It was surprisingly warm; the inner material deceptively soft. "How?" I questioned casually, catching a wet scrap of rolled up cloth as it fell from my forehead. Hazily I could remember Kaiba putting it there, harshly demanding I submit to his nursing. In all my years of knowing Kaiba I could never have anticipated such a thing.

"I beat her, obviously." His stoic tone was standoffish - even more so than usual.

Such explained the presence of my unconscious priestess resting well on the other side of the camp fire.

"Of course." I relied matter-of-factly before eyeing him curiously. "How did you do it?" In truth I was sorry to have missed Kaiba's victory. They had a habit of being ruthless and spectacular in equal measure, like the final moments of gladiatorial combat, filled with that same roaring energy and aggressive elation.

"Crush Card Virus." Kaiba grunted back, ending the conversation there without any further elaboration.

The soft light of the flames flickered and danced, finding each ridge and hollow cast by his slender ribs and angular spine in the dark material that covered his body. He looked strange without his coat. It was as though I was seeing a tortoise missing its shell with all its usually protected parts exposed.

I peeled back the white cover from my legs and gathered it up in my hands. He stiffened as he sensed I was about to approach him, his body becoming rigid. It was hardly normal, but it also wasn't unexpected. For people like Kaiba and I even in the company of close friends there would forever be a barrier of pride protecting us against the risk of being seen at anything less than our best. This was especially true when around someone whose respect was a hard earned and fragile thing. "It's not easy, to be venerable." I commented to myself as I moved toward him.

His eyes avoided me as I crossed in front of them. "No, it's not." Kaiba agreed dismissively. I wonder if he understood what I had been thinking.

He didn't thank me, or react at all beyond taking his coat out of my hand as I offered it back to him. He slipped it on over his shoulders and across his back like a second skin and without pausing for a single moment covered one of my shoulders with his hand as though expecting me to run off without it there to tether me in place and slid the other over my brow.

I was unsure if I should frown or chuckle at the terrifying and endearing intensity with which he scowled and assessed me. "You're not shaking so much anymore." I hummed in reply and stayed still, letting him do his work. He looked deeply unhappy and considerably irritated as he went about his obviously self-inflicted doctoral duties. I gasped and almost flinched as his long white fingers abruptly swept over my side. "And your cut's healing." If this was the sort of ferocious care that Mokuba received when sickly then I truly wished him good health for the rest of his life.

"But you're still too hot." He grumbled finally, as though more the victim of my temperature than I was. "You should go back to sleep." He decided for me, fixing me with an unimpressed blue eyed stare.

I'd just woken up. I felt overly warm, light-headed, appalled by the sticky layer of dried sweat coating my skin and physically fatigued but far from tired enough to rest again so soon.

"Later." I decided.

I joined him by the fire, slowly lowering myself to sit by his side before my strength failed me at the last minute. He watched me through narrowed eyes as if expecting me to keel over but didn't otherwise object to me ignoring his prescribed treatment.

"Your funeral." He noted with dead pan delivery and quickly looked away from me again as I settled next to him.

Was he trying to 'blank' me again?

"I haven't been sick in thousands of years." I mused, testing that theory. A body was necessary for such a thing and since arriving in my afterlife I'd known only health.

Kaiba grunted before eventually replying, confirming that though he was avoiding my eyes he wasn't ignoring me necessarily.

"Aren't Pharaoh's supposed to be living gods?" He snarked, his words muffled by the cigarette held captive between his lips as he negotiated his coat pockets for his lighter. "You'd think a thing like getting sick would make your toadies wake up and call bull." The metallic flick of the tighter punctuated the end of his sentence as he lit his latest habit.

It didn't work that way, but I suspected Kaiba already knew that and was simply trying to antagonize me.

"Why do you pronounce it like that?" I suddenly wondered. I cast my eyes over him as Kaiba absent-mindedly exhaled his first huff of smoke.

He peeled open his coat slightly to return the lighter to its original place before finally giving me his full attention, momentarily re-revealing the tapered bones and corded muscles beneath. Kaiba's new musculature intrigued me. Though he had always been slim and toned he hadn't been as well built as this the last time I 'd seen him in the living world. Now he looked fit and strong; more like a grown man than a long-limbed teenager. The muscles of his chest and abdomen were obvious even at rest. It seemed as though he'd been unsure what sort of contest awaited him in my world and had over-prepared his body to match his new Duel Disk and deck.

"Pronounce what, like what?" He questioned, returning me to my original line of inquiry, ending my suddenly voyeuristic inspection of his body before he could notice. I felt the need to cover my actions behind a guise of pure neutrality, but I couldn't place why. How had just looking at him come to feel so incriminating?

"Like what?" Kaiba demanded again, irritation at having to repeat himself heating his tone and returning me to my question.

Surely he could hear the difference in pronunciation? He may be willfully ignorant but he wasn't deaf. "Kaiba, repeat the word 'Pharaoh'." I tested, smirking as my request was met with a short, clipped. "No." His tone was nonplussed and matter-of-fact, but he still turned to bestow an unimpressed glower upon me for good measure.

"Indulge me." I pressed, taunting him with a tone of voice equal parts calm and mocking.

"I already am doing. This whole conversation is me indulging you." Came his gruff reply, his expression suitably unimpressed by my teasing question.

The camp fire danced in front of us, filling the lull with quiet snaps and cracks that reminded me of the braziers in my palace and were soothing to listen to despite their irregularity. It made the otherwise unyielding silence companionable instead of jarring. "Then a trade." I proposed, watching a stray ember flit about.

"A trade?" Kaiba echoed skeptically, but I sensed his curiosity beneath the surface of his projected dubiousness.

"A question for a question." I explained.

He hummed, exhaling a cloud of smoke into the air which drifted lazily away from us as he contemplated my game. "How do you know I won't lie?"

"You can try, but I'll know." Of that I was certain. Kaiba wasn't even half as good at bluffing as he clearly believed himself to be. Watching his stony face for any amount of time eventually revealed the molten rock beneath it when peering through the cracks.

"Tch." He manipulated the cigarette between his fingers as he considered it, the display skillful despite being absent-minded. "You're really that curious?" His eyes appraised me , meeting mine for the first time in a minute.

"Yes." I nodded, perking my eyebrow at him curiously. "You're the only one who pronounces it the way you do. Even Mokuba doesn't." I paused, if only to enjoy his terse grimace. "Is it unintentional, or are you waging a war on language for the sake of it?" I teased.

Kaiba grumbled something under his breath that I suspected was a coarse insult and took another breath of his cigarette before replying. "It's a regional accent- or what's left of it anyway." He broke my gaze, trailing off to stare up at the sky as he watched the grey tendrils of smoke drift away. It was a gesture of discomfort, disguised as disinterest. He didn't want to continue this conversation.

"From outside of Domino." I noted, mirroring Kaiba's feigned boredom for the subject.

"Nhn."

The reply was thought-provoking, as Kaiba often could be when be wasn't being totally belligerent. "Why doesn't Mokuba share it?"

"We moved into Domino right before he was born, so he sounds like the rest of them." Kaiba took a final gasp from it and busied himself stubbing out the cigarette on the ground beneath him, not caring that the stick had only been partially burned.

That made some sense. For the pronunciation to be so ingrained that it had persisted all the way to his current age Kaiba must have learned the word while he was very young.

"Where did you move from?" I tested, suspected this would be the end of the conversation. It had become too revealing for him.

The response was a surly "Does it matter?" confirming that suspicion. Despite the conclusion a rush of victorious satisfaction followed the conversations end; I was becoming better at recognizing his limits.

"No." I agreed, diplomatically.

Kaiba paused all movement and hesitated. He opened his mouth to ask a question, "What did-" then snapped it shut, cutting off his words as a mild flush of heat bloomed curiously across his lean cheeks. He abruptly shied away to an obviously alternative inquiry.

"What would you do if you were back in Domino?"

The question took me by surprise. I stared at him, unsure how to answer. Clearly he misinterpreted this as reticence.

"A question for a question - and that's mine. If you had to live in Domino now, what would you do?" He demanded, his strange blush fading away so quickly it was as though it had never been there.

"I don't know." I truly didn't. I could guess why Kaiba was asking - he wanted to know what the aftermath of his gambit to return me to life would have looked like had his plan been successful - but I had no answer to give him.

"You've never thought about it?" Kaiba scoffed at that.

"Not with any deep consideration." I admitted. His expression was unimpressed, like he doubted my intelligence. I waved my hand around the oasis; a paradise within a paradise, crafted for me by the God's themselves. "This is where I belong, I haven't had a reason to think differently." I wanted him to understand, but I could tell by the way his eyes narrowed and his teeth gritted that he didn't, or wouldn't.

"You're dead. You know that, right?" Kaiba snapped.

"Kaiba, I've been dead for thousands of years." I parried, kept calm and level against Kaiba's rising temper only because of the outcome of our last conversation about this topic back in his pod.

"Funny how that worked out for you." His tone was bitter and his anger abruptly broke into only deep exasperated scorn as he looked away from me.

I suppressed a sigh. Kaiba felt very strongly about this, as did I. There wouldn't be any victors if we kept debating it so I changed the subject.

"Do I have a body of my own?" I asked, retreating to his previous question.

"Hn?"

"In your hypothetical situation?"

Kaiba huffed, his eyes trailing his boot as he crushed the corpse of his modern day cigarette into the earth of my afterlife with his boot. "Sure, why not."

I contemplated it carefully. Kaiba deserved a thorough answer to his question, even though he'd avoided fully answering my own. "In the short term I suppose have a meal at Burger World with my friends." I decided. I could conjure the image of it in my mind easily - Joey and Tristan mock fighting over a stolen french fry with whatever condiments were closest as their weapons of choice while Téa and Yugi made softer conversation punctuated by gentle laughter and the clinking sound of a stirring implement hitting the narrow sides of Téa's drink as she habitually swirled it around her glass.

"Urgh. You eat fast food?" Kaiba's tone was mildly disgusted and guilelessly chiding. It made me grin.

"It's more about the company than the menu." I summarized. I'd only ever experienced hamburgers through Yugi's body and I wondered what one would taste like on my own tongue, though with many of my own customs and cultural beliefs having returned to me I knew for a fact I would prefer it not to have any lettuce.

"You and Mokuba could come too." I teased. The Kaiba brothers were an effortless addition to the scene; sat perhaps a booth away so the elder wouldn't have to make conversation with anyone else as he scowled behind a hot beverage, while the younger flitted between entertaining his brother and the others.

"Pass." Kaiba grunted, then smirked to himself as though about to play a winning card. "The company's lame and the food's greasy. And vice-versa."

Despite slandering my friends his gibe lacked any true venom so I chuckled at his retort and a bit of the tension trapped in his pose lessened.

A comfortable pause embraced us as I thought about it.

"In the long run... I don't know what I'd do." I turned my head to the stars, gazing up at them as though the Gods would move them about to draft an answer out for me. Reclaiming my place in the world as the Duel Monsters champion had its appeal, and its flaws. Kaiba had retired from dueling, removing one of my greatest challengers from play and "Returning to professional dueling would be difficult- my likeness could throw Yugi's victories into question." I thought aloud.

Kaiba scoffed but didn't otherwise interrupt.

"And Domino's schooling system is of no interest to me." Of that I was certain.

Kaiba's bark of laughter was abrupt and unexpected but very welcome to hear. "What did you even do all day while Yugi was in class?" A condescending amusement was thick in his words, warming them.

I doubted he'd like the answer, but at least this question I had a definitive reply for. "Sometimes I walked the halls of the Millennium Puzzle... " So many dark corridors and branching paths. Despite the heat of my body thinking about it chilled my blood. "But most of the time I just... 'wasn't'." I recalled, struggling for a proper way to phrase exactly what I was trying to say in Japanese.

"You 'wasn't'." Kaiba repeated. He turned to me with a sarcastic twist of his lips. "Who's 'waging a war on language' now?"

"It's difficult to describe." Was my defense. "I was capable of just not 'being'. I could come and go as I pleased." Most likely being able to do so was the only thing that had stopped me from losing my mind in all the thousands years between my time and Kaiba's.

"So you slept?"

The conclusion was so simple and Kaiba's delivery so factual it took me a moment to react.

"You're saying you could just turn being conscious on and off, right?" Kaiba pushed, seeming disinterested.

I supposed so, when boiled down to such simple terms. "Yes, I guess." That was accurate.

"Great. Defeated by a chronic layabout." His jeer was sharp but not harsh, so some sort of dark joke.

"Multiple times." I noted, my tone every bit as self-satisfied as such an achievement deserved. I'd interpreted him correctly as he merely huffed in abject irritation; but though Kaiba seemed tame at present rubbing my victories any further in his face was ill advised. There was no point in poking a dragon in the eye. "I don't know what I would do if I returned to Domino. That's my answer." I concluded.

Our conversations were duels I was beginning to understand exactly how much of my attack Kaiba would endure before his temper rushed to his defense. "Fortunately such a scenario is beyond my concern." I announced with surety.

Kaiba's expression cooled considerably, replying with only a stiff "Hnh."

As was typical for Kaiba he'd tried to cheat to get the better of me in our trade. I'd permitted it by answering each additional question he'd layered on top, answering three of his in return for just one of my own, but I couldn't help but wonder what his original question had been - the one he so quickly denied himself from asking.

"What was it that you were going to ask first?" He rarely hesitated and he wasn't foolish enough to believe I'd missed it.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He bit back, suddenly calling his rage to his side to protect him from my question. I was far from deterred. My interest increased ten-fold.

Any other words weren't necessary, just my stern, unflinching look.

"It's nothing." In a whirl of white he snapped to his feet, striding away from me and the fire for a few steps. Just as quickly he stopped in his tracks and scowled to himself, as though debating something viciously within his own mind.

There was a lingering pause and then Kaiba surprised me. Instead of stiffening into stone his ire was slowly replaced by a morbid curiosity. The stare he fixed me with was impossibly blue; the color of his eyes seeming to glow luminous in the night against his pale skin.

"What did you mean before; when you said you were 'fond' of me?" he eventually asked.

The suddenly growing blush on his face made mine answer in kind.

It also made me realize that Kaiba might be waiting for a different answer than the one I had intended. I had meant no more than I had said. I was fond of him. Though he loathed the term Kaiba was my friend and I liked him, even more-so with the time we were spending together, yet Kaiba seemed to be asking if it had been a confession of sorts. Did he want it to have been? Kaiba's mind had a propensity for twisting otherwise unassuming words into objections and slander... I hadn't realized it might also do the very opposite. Abruptly a feeling I was rarely prey to since Yugi and I parted made my reacquaintance: awkwardness.

Kaiba watched me intently, grimly curious and troubled in equal measure as though waiting for an execution. Possibly his own. We both knew that whatever answer I was to give would be the definitive outcome and there would be no room for a rematch to change the score.

I stood up slowly and took a step towards him, unsure what I wished to say, or how I wished to say it. In response he crossed his arms tightly over his chest as if to shield himself from me.

"Forget it. It's not like it matters." He decided, tilting his head so his hair overshadowed his eyes and made them impossible to read. "We part ways at the end this stupid game anyway. You made that clear." He smirked, bitterly.

Kaiba's right hand was a flash of white as he sharply turned on his heel away from me. Catching it was almost like fishing as I grasped it in my own at the last moment before it escaped and held onto it firmly as it thrashed in my grip. As I refused to release it Kaiba turned back to me, his coat flying just as angrily as his expression.

It was true. By Kaiba's absolute way of thinking no matter what I said, our association was doomed to end and so worthless - yet here he was, rolling the dice regardless by asking me this question.

"Get off." He stated, bluntly. He leaned back against me trying to pull himself free before instantly stilling as I demanded his attention with only the sound of this name.

"Kaiba." I stalled, saying it alone as though it could truly delay me from having to answer him while my mind raced.

"What?" He snapped back, simply glaring down at my hand as it held his as though he were a jackal with its paw in a trap and was considering the merits of gnawing it off to escape.

"I am fond of you." I repeated. I really was.

What answer had he hoped to hear? Beyond that, what had driven him so fiercely that he was here in my world at all? I couldn't guess. I also couldn't answer his query properly until I knew. "What is it that you want from me?" I questioned. For once Seto Kaiba's intentions were utterly veiled to me.

"To beat you in a duel - to get my revenge - the same thing I've always wanted!" He shouted back, his gaze finally meeting my own in clear reprimand.

"And then?" I pressed, unimpressed by the obvious answer.

"And then nothing. That's it." His words were clipped and short but didn't lack conviction.

A cold breeze gusted between us, tussling our hair, my robe and his coat.

"Why? What do you want from me?" He parried, warily and through narrowed eyes.

His counter question surprised me.

I wasn't accustom to wanting anything from Kaiba, other than for him to walk a path of self-improvement as I had told him many times in our duels. No answer came to mind.

Kaiba rolled his eyes at my pause. "Everyone wants something from me." He added with a sneer.

I frowned, turning the inquiry inward. What was my greatest desire for Kaiba? Put simply I wanted him to be happy, and if that wasn't possible for him then I wanted him to be at least contented. It was selfish, a way to relieve the guilt that had planted itself within me while I'd watched Kaiba's tears fall inside of his pod. I wanted him to find his peace. To live a full life without the wound our association had left on him continuing to cause him the pain that had brought him to my afterlife in the first place.

"I want you to leave my world with whatever it is you came here looking for." I explained, ensuring I used no words Kaiba deemed weak or could be easily twisted in his mind.

"Tch." His thankless scoff was immediate, petulant and pricked my temper.

"What is it you want me to say?" I demanded, heatedly this time.

"I don't know!" Kaiba raised his voice and tightened his stance as though about to duel and I did the same.

"Then just listen." I declared, choosing to take a stand and make the first move, or else we'd no doubt be here arguing about nothing until the same time tomorrow.

I opened my mouth, not yet sure what would come out of it. Trusting in my friends came easy; as did trusting in the Heart of the Cards. This time I had to trust the heart within my own chest to make sense of all of this.

"I am fond of you! As a trusted friend and a formidable rival." I began, emphasizing 'am' to the extreme. From the bottom of my heart, truly I was. "I'm fond of your willfulness and your determination. Your paradoxical stubborn mutability!" Now that I had started it was easy to continue. There were many things I liked about Kaiba; though naturally most of them were also his greatest flaws. "I'm fond of your pride, though it does me no favors." Despite shouting my lips slid into a grin. "I'm fond of the peculiar way to pronounce 'Pharaoh' and how recklessly you throw yourself at everything in your way."

Kaiba watched me intently. He hung on my every word as though he had never been complimented before and had no idea how to react.

I smirked in amusement at having found the proverbial carrot to tame this particular stallion. "I'm fond-" then I could continue no longer as Kaiba swooped down to press his lips against mine, harshly, desperately.

My breath caught in my throat. My pulse rushed deafeningly in my ears. I could taste the cigarette he'd just finished in his mouth and feel a crack the arid desert air had left on his dry lips. His left hand held the side of my jaw, locking me in place while his fingers pressed down onto my skin with enough force to bruise if left too long. The blood that Kaiba's oblivious actions had sent racing to the lower half of my body twice in as many days was redirected once again. My hand tightened around Kaiba's own and then -

And then the pressure was gone. I opened my eyes, unsure when I'd closed them, and was reminded of exactly how quickly Kaiba could move when he wanted to. He stood tense, every muscle coiled like a serpent about to strike or a horse about to bolt at least three feet away from me as though he'd magically teleported. Every part of his face was at war with the rest; his expression shocked and angry, his cheeks flushed with an awkward heat and his narrowed blue eyes hostile and deep with shame.

It appeared his offering had been revoked just as quickly as it had been given. That disappointed me, I realized.

Was this the answer that Kaiba was looking for? The one he so desperately craved?

Kaiba snorted dryly and turned his head away from me, the roiling mortification at his actions so clearly shining in his eyes dulling into something calm and solemn.

"Just forget that happened." He decided.

A curious choice of words, and something I wouldn't permit. After spending thousands of years separated from my own memories I couldn't allow myself to 'forget' anything ever again. Let alone something so... unexpected.

"Lie down. Go back to sleep." Kaiba pressed, trying to move the conversation along with the subtly of a raging hippopotamus.

I didn't know if this was what Kaiba had come to my world to find and by his reaction I could tell he didn't know either, yet despite being impulsive I could taste the brutal honesty in his actions. It was uniquely him. Utterly Seto Kaiba. I'd never felt anything like it with anyone else. It was Kaiba pouring out all his furious feelings and pent up pains across the holographic coliseum he'd created for our duel in the Battle City Finals, it was him beckoning me to slit his throat with my cards atop the castle walls of Duelist Kingdom, it was every duel we'd fought with or against each other and every argument we'd ever had polymerized together into one singular expression of his feelings so sudden and powerful it clearly surprised him as much as me.

"You could wait for my reaction - rather than simply rejecting yourself on my behalf." I noted, the words meeting the air confidently despite my feelings to the contrary. My heart pounded frantically in my chest as I casually raised an eyebrow at Kaiba and he shrugged back, the white leather across his shoulders glowing silver in the moonlight, now once more as composed as he ever was.

Kaiba shifted, hitching his shoulders as regret and humiliation pooled in his gaze as my mind and heart dueled. It was a rare thing for me to feel - this moment of unsurety - while my better judgement and riled emotions clashed discordantly as though afflicted by the terrible contagion that was Kaiba's living chaos. I didn't wait for the outcome. Abruptly I knew what I wanted from Kaiba. I wanted him to understand that our feelings were more evenly matched than his despairing expression suggested he believed, and to banish away that dejected look from his proud face.

"I believe in efficiency." He replied, smirking cruelly at himself. "The result would be the same either way."

Is that what he thought?

I crossed the distance between us, a truer smirk than his pulling at my lips in challenge.

"Does it become tiring, Kaiba?" I taunted as I stood at his feet, his eyes icing over into a protective glare as he gritted his teeth against whatever words he suspected I was going to attack him with next. "Being wrong all the time?" I finished.

His eyes narrowed in confusion for the moment between my hand reaching up the back of his neck, and it guiding his head down to mine.

* * *

**AN:** After finishing writing this chapter I realized there's a little bit of cognitive dissonance in it, because although Kaiba is Japanese and their supposedly speaking Japanese, I'm very much using the English dub version of Kaiba and referencing Eric Stuart's pronunciation of the word 'Pharaoh'. Just go with, I guess? Anyway, I like this chapter, but I'm not sure if it started to stray into being a little too OOC at times? Let me know your thoughts! Moving forward this fic will probably bump up to an M rating, just so you guys know.


	22. Chapter 22

**Kaiba**

I hadn't even known I was about to do it until it'd already happened.

My body moved on its own. That was unacceptable. Even worse than stealing a kiss like a horny high school punk; I'd tried to take it back the moment right after, demanding he forget it like a damn coward.

"Does it become tiring, Kaiba?"

He was speaking, but I couldn't concentrate on anything coming out of his mouth over the pulse my ears. My brain scrambled for some inter-dimensional undo button that could fix this whole moronic situation. I could knock him out and pretend it was all a fever dream but it wouldn't work – not with how intensely focused he was on me right now. Those red eyes felt like they were burning right through me.

There was nothing left to do but face it like a man. I wanted his rejection to be smug and haughty so the rage from him being a trumped-up blowhard could wash away everything else. If he tried to let me down gently like I was some fragile schoolgirl making a bashful confession, or impartially managed my expectations like a business associate I'd lose it. I gritted my teeth and waited for the inevitable.

And rejection was inevitable.

One way or another that was how this was about to go down. I knew it, but felt bitter about it all the same even as my brain worked through all the logical evidence.

I'd never been up to Atem's standards before. Not if his pompous reprimands detailing my every flaw and fault were anything to go by. Why all of a sudden my 'willfulness', 'determination' and 'pride' was something he now claimed he was 'fond' of I couldn't guess, but it had to be bullshit. I wasn't someone that other people were actually 'fond' of. I was someone other people wanted to use, or twist and change to suit their own purposes. I'd known that since I was a kid.

I'd learned it first from interviews with all those prospective parents who'd come shopping around the orphanage for a 'smart kid' so they could reap the prestige from grooming some second hand stray into a boring well-to-do son and brag about their brat and his impressive job to their neighbors. There was a reason every time I'd been marched into the 'greeting room' to sit down and make useless chit chat with a primly dressed husband and wife looking to adopt that my test scores, IQ and preferred academic subjects were the only topics of interest. The other kids got asked about their favorite colors and animals, hobbies and what sort of foods they liked. I didn't. None of those cookie-cutter couples cared who I was, or what I wanted even though they were considering bringing me into their household. I started acting up each time, to make sure they left me the hell alone.

Nothing from back then had changed.

The Pharaoh and his little gang of fools dictated that I needed to change myself to meet their specifications. It was part of every asinine friendship speech Gardner had ever spewed at me, and every post-victory gloat the Pharaoh ever thrown in my face after one of our duels like scraps to a starving dog. Even Yugi had tossed a lecture my way once or twice and he was as soft as they came. Not one of them thought I was acceptable in my current state. They all wanted me to modify myself; switch out my internal components and rewire my circuitry like I was a piece of tech in need of a hardware update.

Gozaburo had taken it a step further.

Instead of being just talk he'd actually put in the hours and done the work and paid off a small army of tutors to make sure I was kept adequately conditioned even when he wasn't around to do it himself. I had no idea if he'd been trying to make me into an heir or a psychopath but I had to hand it to him that he did good work either way.

They could get lost. All of them. Everyone on earth could screw off except one, and even he didn't like the way I was. That cut the deepest.

Mokuba had seen it all, had been there through everything and despite that he wanted me to go back to some earlier version of myself like loading a back-up from a hard drive. He wanted a brother who 'smiled', like he remembered from back when he was barely old enough to tie his own shoe laces. As if I had a reason to smile. As though I could just forget all the things that had happened between now and then.

That had to be why hearing Atem claim to like who I was right the hell now apparently acted like an auditory aphrodisiac.

It was beyond strange to hear all of that from someone who wasn't just another fan or wet simpering sycophant on the Kaiba Corp payroll, and to hear it all from him no less; someone who's opinion actually mattered. The only one who's opinion actually mattered, other than Mokuba's.

What a fucking embarrassment.

"-Being wrong all the time?" He finished.

_Wrong? _

With just those five words he commanded my attention again. My eyes hadn't ever left his, but they'd been looking through him instead of at him.

There was challenge in his voice as he strode back into my personal space. The closeness brought me back to the present moment and put me on high alert as Atem stopped toe-to-toe with me and reached upward.

I was too confused to properly react as it happened.

He snagged the lapel of my coat and pulled me back to him firmly, steering my head down to his level. He tried to meet me half way by rising up slightly onto his toes, but still fell short. Literally and figuratively.

"What are you d- ?" I didn't get a chance to finish that sentence.

In one motion I felt him nudge his elbow into my hand which seemed weird, the palm of his hand went to my neck as he pressed forward to brush our mouths together. Atem's kiss wasn't frantic and amateur like mine had been. It was quick and assertive like everything else about him. I froze against him, not sure what this was, what sort of game he was playing and knew full well how stupidly ludicrous that was since I'd been the one to start it in the first place.

My thoughts raced and yet somehow not a single one of them was remotely useful.

Was he actually kissing me? Yes, by definition. Why was he kissing me? What was he trying to prove? Was this just to smooth over the humiliating performance I'd put on? To spare me? Or was this genuine? That seemed too coincidental, that he actually returned whatever useless chaotic hormones made up my ridiculous 'feelings', and had realized it right the fucking minute after I'd smashed our mouths together. Usually I didn't believe in coincidences, so I let myself momentarily wonder what if this was real. Every duel started with a first turn; with a duelist making the first move. Was that what this was?

Either way I didn't want to be beaten at it.

It turns out when someone starts making out with you then inaction isn't really an option. Atem's usual self-confidence faltered when I didn't respond to him. His eyebrows pinched together anxiously and he started to pull away as I was still figuring his play out and deciding on my next move, or if I should even make a move. The start of his tentative retreat jump started me into action. There was no way I was going to back down, or let him escape. I went with what he'd been doing and reapplied the pressure of our lips, moving them against his like he'd demonstrated a second ago.

I didn't know if this was the right move or if I'd just wasted my turn until he slightly smirked against my mouth, like he was relieved, then redoubled his original efforts into a kiss that was domineering and demanding. It suited him and I matched it. Atem's lips grinned against mine like he'd scored a point and then the bastard darted his tongue into my mouth and poked me with it.

"Ghn!" A startled grunt came out of my mouth as I jerked backwards and away from him, not expecting him to go that far that fast.

That was too much. Way too much. It figured that no matter what I did he had to take it a step further; to up the ante and claim some new victory over me. Was that what this was? Pure one-upmanship? My gut twisted at that thought. It could have just been hunger, I hadn't eaten anything in almost two days. That was nothing new but somehow this clenching feeling was different; more agonizing that just a biological rush of ghrelin. For once I wanted to be wrong, illogical as that was.

"You can't be serious." I wiped my mouth off on the back of my hand as I said it.

I'd meant it to be accusing, because he was a lot more sadistic than I'd thought if this was all just a head game, but the statement came out more like a blunt question. The confusing tone running as interference worked in my favor. It gave me time to walk of the shock of Atem tongue lashing me in a whole new way than I was acclimatized to.

There was a small gust of breath out of his lips as he leaned back. He lowered himself back onto his feet and one of his lean arms bent to place his hand on his hip.

"You kissed me first." He noted. There was flush of red across his face and for a moment I couldn't tell if it was from his fever or this whole humiliating debacle. Atem seemed pretty calm about this despite how outlandish all of this was; or he was pretending to be anyway. Even though his hand was casually balanced on his side, his biceps were nervously tensed up against the surface of his skin, like he was ready to whip out a card at any second. It made me feel a little better to know he was just as determined to downplay it as I was.

"So what, you're just evening the score?" My delivery was sarcastic even though the question hidden face down beneath it was uncomfortably real.

"What?" His eyebrows furrowing and mouth twisting downwards to look offended and enraged. The glare he fixed me with was scalding.

I sneered back, matching his hot rage with my own cold cynicism. "I kissed you, and now you've kissed me, so we're even. Is that it?" If it was then we could sweep this whole thing under the rug and move on like nothing happened. That's exactly what I thought I'd wanted a minute ago, but the idea of actually getting it tasted sour.

"You're a fool if that's what you think." He declared, full of pomp and irritation like he was at the top of his game chewing me out after a duel. I could almost believe he was a living god or something else not fully human as got all riled up. His eyes shone like garnets and his blonde bangs quivered with indignation.

I grunted at the abruptness as he snatched the wrist that he'd been gripping up to my chest, holding my hand captive by the joint over my heart. I could see it in my peripheral vision as he knitted his lean fingers through my own and held them there like a vice, forcefully pressing down on my knuckles.

He leered at me adamantly, still pissed even while he held my hand.

"I won't allow you to willfully misunderstand my intentions." There was an intensity in the way his digits locked around mine and rueful determination in his tone. "If 'this' is what you want-" His eyes darted pointedly to our joined hands, which was apparently the subject of the mythical 'this' he was talking about "-Then this is what I want too."

What? What the hell sort of thing to say was that? The logic of 'I'll jump if you jump' was a better way to initiate a joint suicide than... whatever the hell it was we were talking about here. Some sort of absurd courtship?

"It would never work." My counter was quick and scathing.

I couldn't tell what 'it' prospectively even was, but I knew that fact for certain. For one thing we were both male, then there was the fact we were rivals, opponents, also one of us happened to be dead and we didn't live in the same damn dimension. There were innumerable other reasons, but those were too big to be discarded. The numbers just didn't add up.

I'd analyzed the key components of rudimentary human attraction while he slept - trying to identify the factors that had created that inane little scene I'd conjured in my mind as Teleia felt me up so I could pick it apart and throw it away.

Length of association was a basic one and it checked out- Atem and I known each other for a few years, even though I'd suspected he was just the end result of a terminally bullied kid's psychotic break in the early days. In our respective worlds we were of the same socioeconomic standing, except Kaiba Corporation spanned the globe and his 'country', if you could call this dreamland that, was only as big as his mind made it. Shared hobbies and interests was a point scored in our favor since we were both elite Duelists. We didn't have compatible beliefs - because his were pure nonsense. On top of that there wasn't a chance in hell anyone would call our personalities complimentary; most of the time he couldn't hold back from running his mouth about all the things he'd decided were wrong with me. Three out of five then. It was a pathetic score.

"I've never known you to be so defeatist, Kaiba." Atem angrily retorted, the furrow in his brow easing up at the end so he could half perk one eyebrow at me in irritated curiosity.

He had some nerve! "It's not defeatist if it's a logical certainty." I hissed back at him. Apparently he'd missed the memo about exactly how unfeasible us potentially trying to have any sort of 'relationship' was, if that was what we were debating. The circumstances alone made it completely unrealistic, not to mention the obvious conflicts in our cultural backgrounds and social circles. The whole thing was laughable. The only real merit the whole ludicrous idea had was that running around with a half-naked, dark-skinned Egyptian guy would make Gozaburo writhe in his grave.

"I've seen you duel countless times in the face of insurmountable odds." He noted arrogantly, his lips puckering like he'd tasted something acidic. "Yet this is what you draw the line at as being impossible?"

"Nothing is impossible!" I hissed back without even thinking about it, and anything that claimed to be just hadn't dueled me yet!

I'd beat destiny itself in Battle City if Ishizu's droning was to be believed, I could call Blue Eye's into my hand every draw I needed it with just a thought and I'd pulled Obelisk the Tormentor out of the fucking ground in Egypt just a week ago despite the card having been removed from existence. I'd suddenly known I could, and so I had.

Nothing was impossible!

Atem smirked at me like I'd blundered into one of his trap cards and only after that did I realize he'd baited me into his verbal snare like a rank amateur.

"Tch!" Damn him.

I gripped his fingers with my own, squeezing his hand so hard it must have been painful but linking them together fully with my own in the process. He returned the gesture. Even though our hands were finally completely bound together and our fingers were threading through each other in a bizarre zigzag of dark and pale skin I couldn't tell if we were trying to hold hands or crush each other.

Both, if I had anything to say about it.

He leaned forward, getting as up in my face as he could while being over a foot shorter than me and not caring at all about the height difference judging by the determination in his face. "Then prove it. I challenge you."

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as he called me out and I leaned towards him, matching his moves until our mouths were so close I could feel his breath on my lips and see every single shade of red in his eyes.

"Uh-hmm."

There as a muted noise from behind us. Something half way between the clearing of a throat and a false cough.

Atem and I parted like a warhead had detonated between us and my eyes sliced across the camp fire to find Isis, awake and staring right at us.

Oh great.

"My Pharaoh." She calmly greeted.

She hadn't moved after I flushed Teleia out of her with my Crush Card. Not for a few minutes. Itd been long enough for me to start to wonder if my Virus really had killed her and I was holding onto a corpse. Mokuba was the only person in my life that had managed to survive me, so it wouldn't have been a surprised. Even the Pharaoh couldn't claim that.

"Ohhhhhh." Was the first noise she'd made. It had been pained and quiet. I'd recognized it. It was the sound of waking up in a body that hates you, with a mountain in sleep debt and backlog of metabolic bills to pay.

Her fingers had brushed her hair back behind her ear and she'd squinted up at me from the floor.

"S-Seto?"

"Tch." Other than Mokuba no one got to use my given name. 'Seto' was just a precursor to 'Kaiba', like Monday was to Tuesday. Hearing it on its own from her irritated me, but I wasn't going to kid myself. I knew that I wasn't the 'Seto' she was hoping for anyway.

"No." I told her, eager to finally let go of her.

She'd blinked at me in confusion before the honest semi-relaxed expression of discomfort the average person might wear around an acquaintance shuttered into the closed off and steely one any sane person kept on for strangers and potential threats – which were just the same thing in my book. I didn't need anything other than that look to know she'd realized who I was, or who I wasn't to be more precise. Then, just when it seemed like she was going to get it together she'd annoyed me by promptly passing out, leaving me not with one unconscious idiot to look after, but two.

It figured that now – right this damn second – was when she had to come to.

"We're not finished here." I muttered under my breath as we both turned back to Isis, keeping my voice so low that only Atem could hear it. He didn't just get to throw down the gauntlet and then flake as soon as one of his new goon squad needed his attention; not on this. Atem nodded back subtly, the motion setting his earrings swinging.

"I'm aware of that." came his smooth answer, barely loud enough for me to make out before he stepped toward his supposed priestess.

Any chance that Isis hadn't caught on to what was happening was dead on arrival. I had no idea what sort of cultural taboo Atem and I were breaking, if any, but her hollow stare was intense and assessing. If she thought something like that was going to get to me then she had no idea who she was dealing with. I dialed up mine to match, glaring back at her.

"Isis." Atem acknowledged warmly. He'd already flawlessly recomposed himself as best he could while he still had a temperature. I followed suit, but could feel a useless hot blush across my face and didn't have a handy hint of fever to hide it.

She bowed back to Atem and the probing look in her eyes vanished behind the same dutiful indifference I demanded of my employees.

"How do you feel?" Atem inquired, like he was overdue a report on the subject.

I'd noticed the moment he opened his big mouth up in the throne room that the words he chose and the way he said them were more formal here than they'd been back in the real world. It'd eased up a bit while we'd been running around out here like total dolts. It still wasn't back to the way he usually spoke, but it had become less Shakespeare in the Park and more casual. Now that he had one of his lackeys to put on a show for that ye olde theatrical delivery was back at full force.

"As well as is to be expected after such manipulation, my Pharaoh." Isis answered, only encouraging more of his melodramatic pronunciation with her own. "Yet I would return the question upon you, if permitted." She crossed between us to get to him, putting herself between Atem's body and my own in a way that seemed too precise to be accidental.

"It's been taken care of." I announced, snapping my head to the side to hide my disgusting blush.

"I am sure." Isis answered dismissively. She didn't even turn to look at me as she brazenly threw my work back in my face, pretending to be distracted by pressing her hands against the Pharaoh's body and cupping them around his face. Atem didn't have a word to say as she went about her inspection, twisting his head one way and then the other. There really was a first time for everything.

"You are feverish, my Pharaoh." She summarized. I rolled my eyes. I could have told her that without her needing to feel him up.

"What, you're a doctor now?" Irritation crawled in my skin and her impartial facial expressions and utterly nonchalant tone didn't help.

Why the hell did she have to interrupt us right when she did? If she'd been watching, and she clearly had been, then any idiot would have known to keep quiet for just one more minute. I had no idea what I was going to say to Atem's challenge, but I was sure I would have figured it out by then if she hadn't gotten in my way.

"My mother was chief physician to the Pharaoh for many years. Her knowledge dwells within me." Isis replied blandly, ignoring me for the most part as she took a look at the cut on Atem's side. He grimaced as she prodded at it, one eye closing against the pain as the other meanwhile glanced between us. Despite his discomfort he barely suppressed some know-it-all grin, like he was waiting for the punchline to a joke he'd already heard once before. I got what it was he was waiting for a second too late as Isis turned her lousy sense of humor on me and caught me off guard.

"Are you also feeling sickly? Your face is reddened." She asked, deliberately demure about it.

"Tch!"

Atem opened one eye back up to get a good look at my humiliation and smirked wryly as my face only flushed redder at the accusation. Apparently some part of this situation was funny to him.

"Mind your own business." Whatever! I didn't need this right now. I turned on my heel and strode away from them further down the oasis's shoreline. My composure was shot and I didn't need her pointing that out.

The fronds and shrubs lining the water crunched satisfyingly beneath my boots, the snap of each stem and rip of the leaves making me feel more in control and more like myself as I escaped from the range of the camp fire's light so Isis couldn't keep staring at me like I was some sideshow freak.

I felt like one after everything that had just happened.

A lot of things I'd known about myself; been one hundred percent certain of without any doubts suddenly had question marks hanging over them. Me leaving the battle field feeling like that was Atem's calling card, but this time we hadn't even dueled. That made everything worse. Instead of walking away with a whole new painful clarity to work towards I felt confused and I suspected once the adrenaline rush from all of this ran out I'd be exhausted by it all too. Three days was as long as I could go on without real sleep while remaining reliably functional. I'd done eight once, but after the ninety-six hour mark things just became a shit show.

My eyes itched at just the suggestion.

The moon didn't help either. There was just enough light to make out my reflection and I looked flustered and weak. I barely recognized the mess walking along the shore beside me that had my face. My cheeks were bright pink, my clothes were skewed, the bruise on my face from Atem's sucker punch was unsightly and I had a new cut from Teleia that had apparently bled a bit before closing up. Even my hair was a mess. Usually I could rely on that at least to keep itself in order but apparently not today.

I glanced back at Atem from the shadows, hating that he had seen me so disheveled.

"Please rest and regain your strength while I attend you." I could make out Isis saying to him from a way away. His head turned from my direction back to her and there was a strange squirming feeling I couldn't quantify from knowing that he'd been watching after me.

With a sweep of her hand she gestured for him to lie back down on the sheet I'd managed to make out of all the dry parts of his cloak and unlike when I'd said exactly the same damn thing this time he actually went along with it. Atem nodded his head he followed her instructions now that someone he apparently deemed qualified to give him medical advice was ordering him around. They started speaking in hushed tones that were too low for me to hear as he settled down and I didn't care enough to bother lip reading.

When I was satisfied there was no way they'd be able to keep an eye on me anymore I knelt down on the shoreline and splashed some water on my face.

I hadn't realized how quickly I'd gotten used to the feeling of dried sweat and grit on my skin until that rush of water stripped a layer of it off. It didn't matter that the sanitation of it was questionable at best and who knew what was living in it, so long as I didn't pull up a palm-full of water teeming with leeches there was no way I was stopping there. I rolled my sleeves up enough to plunge my hands in to the wrist and repeated the motion over and over until I couldn't feel any warmth on my face at all. It was far from a perfect mirror, but I straightened my clothes based on my reflection and smoothed all the rogue strands of hair down flat. The end result was far from photo shoot ready, but an appreciable improvement, which would have to do.

After another five minutes of tidying I was starting to look like myself again and it wasn't a moment too soon, as Isis's reflection joined my own in the water as she silently crept up behind me.

"What do you want?" I questioned, rising up to my feet and turning around to face her as I crossed my arms.

She clasped her hands in front of her gently, inclining her head to me a fraction. "To thank you, for freeing me from the influence of Sphinx Teleia." Came the serene answer.

I rolled my eyes at her dramatics.

"She did not permit me vision nor knowledge of her actions while she controlled my body, but it is plain to see that the Pharaoh is in no condition to have triumphed over her on this night." Isis added. Her tone revealed absolutely nothing, which was impressive. It also made it hard to judge if she was just paying me obligatory lip service or not.

"Hnh." I grunted, narrowing my eyes at her. "Don't mention it." because I didn't want her thanks even if they were genuine. People were easy to figure out, but something in Ishizu's subdued tone and expressions made her difficult to predict. This version of her was no different. I didn't like it, or her.

Having said her piece we stood there in silence, which was preferable to actually having to make conversation with her. She seemed equally at ease with the arrangement, until her tell gave her away. For just a moment her finger tips went to touch the base of her neck, just like Ishizu had done with her tacky Necklace.

"What?" I growled. Clearly she was here for a reason or else she'd have gone back to the camp fire by now. She should be looking after Atem like she'd said she would, not standing around here with me dawdling. "Here to tell me to keep my hands off your king?" I taunted, smirking at her in the dark. I wasn't sure how I felt about everything, but knowing that someone else possibly disapproved of it made me warm up to the idea at record speed.

"No." Isis answered, denying me an interesting reaction to watch. "The Pharaoh is free to do what he will with whomever pleases him." Her eyes slowly slid across the horizon to look me over.

Supremely slowly she reached toward my jaw, not deterred even as I stared her down. I refused to react beyond that; I wasn't sacred of her. Her thumb traced the bruise on my cheek and then my cut. The motions were almost tender. They were boring so I looked away, only bothering to watch in my peripheral vision as her eyes roamed lower to get a look at all the other chunks of me Atem had carved out of my body during our sword fight.

"These wounds are healing well. The tenderness will fade soon." She settled her hands back in her lap, pretending to smooth down the front of her dress with a sweep of her palm that lingered just a fraction too long over her stomach to be convincing.

She shouldn't stick around out here like that.

She should get lost, go home and get herself checked out by whatever counted as gynecologist in this time period. Probably some sort of moldy geezer who though animal crap warded off evil spirits and sent their patients home with a prescription of horse spit.

A hideous thought occurred to me.

"It better not be 'mine'." Me, and Ishizu? As if. Not in this dimension. Not in any dimension.

Her fake glanced up at me, obviously confused.

"The Other Me's." I elaborated, trying to put it in terms they seemed to understand. She didn't seem to get every word I was saying, like she couldn't fully understand me. I scoffed. How ridiculous. I was fluent in every language I spoke, even if they were only used for programming. Slip ups weren't an option - a fact Gozaburo had made sure I was acutely aware of.

I could tell the moment she figured out the question – her eyes went wide in horror and her hand darted to her gut like she needed to protect her brat from the idea.

"Oh by the gods, no." She confirmed.

I scowled at her blatant disgust, though that was a damn relief. Her face quickly twitched back into its usual grating calmness.

"The babe is Mahad's." She announced softly, like I was supposed to know who that was and all of their names.

"The Pharaoh's champion." She added, catching on that I had no idea which one she was talking about from my point blank stare. Of course 'the Pharaoh's champion' wasn't much help either – so far it seemed like everyone I'd met in this backwards world was either Atem's 'champion', or 'priest' or something else that sounded ripped out of an uninspired RPG.

"The Dark Magician guy?" I guessed. Or more specifically the card's look-a-like that had tried to stop me from getting into Atem's throne room completely ineffectually. That seemed unlikely, given that he was a trading card. It didn't matter. I didn't care about the answer now that I knew my pathetic knock-off had nothing to do with it.

She quietly laughed to herself behind her hand, as if I'd said something funny. "Yes, the very same."

However that worked I didn't want to think about it.

Her amusement faded quickly, which suited me just fine. Her expression slipped back into its usual bland stoicism as she turned slightly to make sure Atem hadn't woken up. Something in the fugitive way she did it made me suspicious.

"He doesn't know?" I narrowed my eyes at her, watching her reaction carefully.

"None do, other than Mahad." She cast her eyes down to her lap. "We would name him Chisisi, for he is our secret alone." Her reply was somber, but I didn't know why.

"He would be our second." She glanced up at me, doleful in a way that made me uncomfortable, "Our first I lost after only a couple of moons". This whole topic made me uncomfortable. "We have told no one, for fear that the Gods see fit to pluck him from me as well." Her words were quiet, like that was some grim confession. In their culture it could have been. If it was I had no idea why she thought it was a great idea to confide in me, of all people, but if it was for one second because I looked like my ridiculous hat-wearing imitation then she had another thing coming.

These people were dead – just fantasy NPC's in this half-baked video game. How could they be running around getting knocked-up and having miscarriages when they weren't even real? How did this place work? I could physically feel her touch and she appeared capable of independent decision making but that had to be an illusion if she was just an old memory from Atem's brain playing out a role.

"How can you know something that he doesn't when you're just a figment of his imagination" I questioned, not expecting any sort of rational answer.

She slowly blinked at me before finally throwing "Is that what you choose to believe?" back in my face.

"Then what are you?" I snapped, other than irritating.

She turned her head upward to take a look at the stars before wistfully replying. "The gods crafted the afterlife for the pleasure of mortals, not their comprehension."

A bullshit omission that she had no idea either then, but if the simulation could dynamically create and change it's characters without any sort of external initiation then it was a lot more complex than I'd previously assumed. More so than any Virtual World to date, enraging as that was to admit. With enough concurrent environmental and character updates it almost would be like living a real life. No wonder Atem hadn't even entertained the idea of escaping. It was perfectly manicured life in a perfect place surrounded by people who literally worshiped him. It sounded boring.

"The Pharaoh's fever will break soon." Isis commented, interrupting that thought.

"Tch. You can't know that." I rejected the idea of her being able to predict something like that, even though it was probably true. I doubted anything could keep the King of Games down for long. That stubbornness and the Medicine had done the trick.

"I have seen it before."

She'd been wrong before too but I hardly could be bothered arguing over the farcical belief in fate this version of Ishizu was still clinging on to - she wasn't worth my effort.

"So you've seen all of this before?" I demanded, tersely. I snapped my head in Atem's direction just thinking about the implications of that. I didn't know what was going to happen next turn. That was business as usual when dueling Atem, but suddenly nothing felt normal anymore. This felt more like leaning out of the door of an aircraft ready to skydive with a faulty parachute, not knowing if I was about to have the best adrenaline rush of my life or break into a thousand pieces as I crashed into the ground. If it was actually possible to see the future then I could examine the possibilities and formulate a strategy to get me to the outcome I wanted. Once I figured that out.

"In part. The Millennium Necklace had once shown me you summoning forth the Eye of Osiris, as so it was." The priestess followed my line of sight over to where Atem was lying and then turned away, pretending to be busy by fussing with her robe.

"So what happens next?" I doused my query in sarcasm. I didn't want Isis thinking for one second I believed in her mystical fortune-telling bullshit, or that she had actual answers to give me. Not like I needed relationship advice for one that hadn't even started yet. Shit. Pretending to suddenly be interested in something across the water I turned my head away from her so she couldn't see it as my embarrassing blush punched back. Stupid thing was going to give me away.

Isis glanced back at me with a strange face. "Only what is meant to."

Typical nonsense.

She paused. "Not long after dawn Mahad will meet us here. I have seen no further after that." Her eyes were pinched at the corners and she was pressing her lips together like she was trying to hide a smile.

What was with that reaction?

Ishizu had a way of pissing me off with just a look – looks like this version of her did too.

"What?" I snapped.

Isis's eyes gleamed with some low-key amusement that she was clearly failing to hide. "I am sure your efforts will not be in vain." She added, slowly. If she was trying to spare me humiliation then she was doing a bad job.

There was another long silence before Isis decided to change the subject.

"Your skin is quite cool to the touch." She noted. No breaking news there. With a smooth arcing of her arm she gestured backwards. "Come and join us by the fire."

I rolled my eyes at her as she invited me back to sit around the camp fire that I'd made in the first place. The raw nerve of these people.

With an inclination of her head she excused herself and floated back over towards the camp to kneel down at Atem's side. I could make out the movements of her body silhouetted against the flames as she smoothed his bangs down away from his face and readjusted the cloth I'd left over his forehead, flipping it over before putting it back.

"Tch." With a grunt I stalked back over to them, not because she told me to, but because I wanted to. I'd lit the stupid fire to use it after all.

Trampling the shrubbery under my boots felt just as satisfying on my way back, until something hard and cylindrical caught on the underside of my foot and threw off my stride. Even though it was half sunk into the sand and covered in a coat of smiley green goo I recognized my genius immediately as the otherwise undamaged shape of Atem's Duel Disk gleamed wetly in the moonlight. With a leaf I wiped off what I assumed to be the left over guts of Bird of Roses and jostled it out of standby mode, the device loading up with a yellow glow.

I smirked.

We had a second Death Counter no thanks to the crash, and Atem and I might be about to start an exhibition match of our very own to complicate things, but ignoring all that our odds of winning the final round against Anubis had just doubled.

* * *

**AN: **Too much angst? Not enough angst? OOC? Let me know! Updates might be a bit slower moving forward; I didn't actually think I'd get this far so I never really planned out the rest of the story and now need to figure it out. Please read and review!


	23. Chapter 23

**Mokuba**

I nodded to Hobson as he shepherded the maids out of the room and closed the door behind him.

Joey was punching one of the spare pillows and stuffed it behind Yugi's head to prop him up in the bed a bit more, but it wasn't really needed. He looked comfortable enough already and it wasn't like the household staff had never dealt with a comatose person before - weird as that was.

Once he was done beating up the bedding Joey wandered around the room poking and prodding at everything; the lamp shades, the curtain ties and of course all the trinkets that were peppered around the shelves to make the space look more 'homey'.

"Jeez, some guestroom!" He teased as he opened up the sliding door to the balcony and stuck his head through. How genuinely intrigued he was by every little detail made me laugh a bit.

There was something extra dumb about decorating the place with store-bought knickknacks and keepsakes to make it look friendlier. Mementos were meant to be special, not something snagged out of a store to pretend the room was more lived in than it really was. I guess beggars couldn't be choosers. Gozaburo had tossed all the games and souvenirs the orphanage had let Seto and I keep into the fireplace right in front of us so it wasn't like we had a bunch extra lying around to use as decorations.

"Nheh! It's even got those packaged up toothbrushes an' mini toothpaste tubes like in fancy 'otels!" Joey shouted to me from the bathroom - like I didn't already know.

"It wouldn't be much of a guestroom if it didn't have toiletries, right?" I called back.

"Guess so." Joey snickered, the mechanical clunk of the lever being pulled and the rushing sound of water flushing down the toilet sounded off. Gross. He hadn't even fully closed the door.

I heard the faucet run before he came back out wiping his hands dry on his jeans, despite all the hand towels. "Are all of em' done up like this?"

"Nope. Only this one and another." The mansion had lots of guestrooms - it used to have way more when Gozaburo was alive, but some of them had been converted into other things since. Seto had even knocked down a wall to merge two of them together into a home cinema. My big brother's logic was that since there was no way in hell he was ever going to allow so many guests to stay the night keeping a tonne of extra rooms didn't make sense, and making up the rooms each day was an inefficient use of the maids time. After Pegasus turned over half of our employees against us he'd cut back the mansion's staff, only keeping the ones we knew we could trust. Since then only two guestrooms were made up each day, with the others only being aired out every other week.

That wasn't why I'd picked this room out though. I'd chosen it for Yugi to use because it was my room back when Gozaburo was alive and I knew the mattress was really comfortable.

It was strange to see the place I'd basically spent half my childhood in tidied up and refurbished as a guestroom. It almost felt like an effort to erase all the memories I'd made in here. Maybe that was Seto's intention, but I didn't mind looking back. He probably thought I should hate our past as much as he did. Thing was, unlike him I remembered more than just the bad stuff.

I glanced over to the middle of the room, knowing that under the antique rug the interior decorator had put there was a loose floor board, and under it was a treasure trove. I actually used to call it that, but I'd been really little at the time

Having all our games burnt up hadn't beaten Seto - not even a little. He'd sulked about it for half a day and then come up with a plan.

We'd pulled the box from one of Gozaburo's pairs of dress shoes out of the trash the next day and stashed it away under the squeaky floorboard in my room. Into it went everything we could swipe without being noticed. Junk like wine corks, pen lids, coasters and any ornaments small enough that we could fit into our pockets made up the new game pieces of whatever we played. There were stacks of paper crayoned to look like chess, checkers and monopoly boards - complete with hand drawn money made from sheets of toilet paper that had half the numbers backwards because Seto let me make them and only noticed the fives were inverted after I'd already used up a whole roll. It didn't matter back then that they were crude and sometimes even actual trash; my big brother sneaking into my room after dark and the two of us prying up the board to play games with all the 'toys' we'd repurposed were some of my favorite memories.

I was waiting for the day I could dig the shoe box out, show it to my big brother, and actually see him smile at it. That day would come - I really did think that - sometime after all this Pharaoh stuff was finished with for real.

The legs of one of the wooden chairs from the balcony scrapped against the floor as Joey pulled it inside into the room and over to Yugi's bedside. He flopped down into it and pulled a face. "So now we just wait, huh?"

Shrugging back was all I had. "I guess."

Joey bounced his leg up and down restlessly. It didn't look like he could keep still. Waiting around and being patient didn't phase me at all, I had so much practice it was one of the things I was best at, but other than when he was watching duels - which as a duelist probably counted as entertainment for him - Joey was always on the move, always doing something or bugging someone. It figured the idea of waiting around for the next thing to happen wasn't his style.

He awkwardly cleared his throat and started talking, probably just to give himself something to do.

"Soooo. whad'ya think 'is chances would actually be?"

"Huh?" It wasn't the greatest reply in the world, but I didn't know what he was talking about.

"Kaiba's - of winnin' against Atem in a duel, if they got ta play it." Joey scratched at his nose, his eyes aiming towards the ceiling like he was trying to imagine it. "That's what he went for, right?" He leaned back in the chair casually and crossed his arms behind his head.

Sort of. Ignoring the big 'if' he'd even got there.

"Depends, on the deck he uses, the strategies - you know, duelist stuff." And on if my big brother was even trying to win. That was the biggest factor.

_"Maybe you don't have to win, Seto. Maybe it's okay to just call it a draw and let it go?"_

I wish I hadn't said that to him.

I hadn't realized exactly what I'd done until it was too late. I knew I'd messed up as soon as I saw that gleam in Seto's eyes - the sort of overly bright one that a lot of other people seemed to find off-putting, that only flicked on when my brother had a new and crazy idea.

His plan to draw with Atem and bring him back here had sprung out of those words, and the worse thing was Seto had deliberately misread my meaning. That made all of this my fault, even though I hadn't meant it that way. I think a part of Seto knew that.

Maybe he wouldn't even need that plan though. He said he'd keep it as a back-up and only use it if he felt it was the best option.

"He already beat the Pharaoh in simulation." I reminded myself.

"Pft." Joey waved that off like it was a bug buzzing around him. "Like any robo-pharaoh could compare to the real deal."

He had no idea just how authentic Seto's 'robo-pharaoh' really was. It was creepy in how life-like my big brother had got it to being over the years.

"Man, think how crazy it would be if Atem came back with 'im." That threw me, but luckily Joey didn't notice. He kept grinning up at the ceiling. "Like that would happen though, nheh."

"By choice, you mean?"

Joey's eyes jumped down to mine and he stared, like I'd said something strange. "Yeah o'course by choice." He eyeballed me suspiciously for a second before shrugging it off. "Why else would he come back?"

I shrugged right back. I didn't want to tell him anything else, because he wouldn't understand. None of them would. They didn't know how badly my brother needed to get this done, no matter what it took.

I began answering the question, but had to pause half way to figure out my reply. "If Atem came back..." 'willingly' was the word I didn't say, but added it on to the end of my sentence mentally anyway. I pictured the Pharaoh climbing out of the Dual Dimension pod with my brother, trying to visualize it for myself. I wasn't ready for the rush of pure anger than shot through me at the thought.

I didn't want the Pharaoh to come back. How was I only just realizing that now?

If he did then all of this would never end - Seto would never get over his losses and move on. Not to mention that if he came back willingly, for Seto's sake, that would be even worse.

Knowing that someone was living just for you, dedicating their life to yours and putting what they wanted and needed aside... it was a heavy burden. I knew that better than anybody. At best there was the guilt of being someone else's obligation and at worse the helplessness of having to watch how that person twisted and changed under the weight of fulfilling their promise until it made them so completely different that they couldn't go back to how they'd started.

I didn't want that for Seto.

"Earth to Mokuba. Y'in there?" Joey drawled with a snicker.

"Y-yeah." I threw a grin his way, pretending that everything was fine and that I'd just zoned out. "I hope everyone ends up where they're meant to be." I concluded honestly.

For my brother that was here, with me. For Atem that was in the afterlife, far away from Seto.

I felt myself frown. I was bitter at my own bitterness. How dumb.

Joey shot me a supportive grin from across the bed and pulled out a thumbs up. "Don't worry, Yug'll come through. He always does." He jostled Yugi's shoulder while he lay in bed loudly shouting 'Right, buddy?', as if he expected that to wake Yugi up so he could reply.

His encouragement just proved that Joey didn't get what I was thinking, and that was probably for the best.

**Atem**

I stretched as I awoke.

My limbs no longer ached from doing so and I chanced sitting upright to find that thankfully the lightheadedness that had accompanied the action last night had faded until it was barely noticeable. The sweat of my body had dried leaving behind the faint outline of undignified stains rounding my armpits and neckline as well as a scattering of smaller marks where it had pooled in the valleys of my abdominal muscles. The sight was unseemly, but mercifully the dizzying heat had receded to only a lick of lingering warmth as I chanced touching my forehead.

Isis's sleek form wordlessly knelt down at my side ready to attend me as I peered through the half-light of a new day to see that Kaiba's clearly unattended campfire had fallen into only a pile of softly smoldering ash. Kaiba himself was nowhere to be seen. I wondered what form of mild to intermediate chaos he was off sowing now, the thought filling me with the contradictory fondness he had demanded I elaborate on the night before.

"Where-"

Isis hushed me with a touch of her fingers to her lips. Silencing a Pharaoh was audacious, but as a paragon of propriety I found Isis's strange gesture curious instead of disrespectful.

Though muted there was a gleam of good-natured amusement in her eye. The same one that she and Mahad often shared when they were jesting with my High Priest at his expense. It was well-meaning, rarely unprovoked and never a source of concern, but was more difficult to ignore now that I guessed it was being aimed at Kaiba instead.

With a meaningful tilt of her head I allowed Isis to lead my gaze toward a nearby date palm, one of many alike all bearing an unseasonal bounty of sweet fruit and jostling for position around the oasis's edge. Though short compared to others its trunk was wider, so much so that only the angular peaks of Kaiba's coat were visible from our vantage point on the opposite side.

"Apologies, my Pharaoh." The part of Kaiba's shoulder visible to me twitched in response even as Isis whispered the words, "It seems he is a poor sleeper."

I nodded back in understanding as I leaned forward, finding a new angle that brought the side of Kaiba's body and his face into my view.

As the Spirit of the Millennium puzzle I'd grown fond of watching over Yugi as he slept and guarding him against dark dreams. It was my honor to do so, but also my responsibility, as it was often hazy memories of the carefree wrath that I had visited indiscriminately upon his various tormentors in our early days together that haunted him the most. With those nightmares banished Yugi looked so relaxed and at peace while asleep.

Kaiba on the other hand looked anything but. Instead he looked only tired and uncomfortable.

His head was bowed at a harsh angle, his chin resting on his chest as though he'd fallen asleep accidentally and his Duel Disk lay half disemboweled across his legs along with a few scraps of purple cloth I recognized to be parts of my cloak. Beside him lying on another section of my cape was and array of components, the small toolkit he'd rescued from his pod in the desert and the very welcome sight of my own Duel Disk, appearing to be whole and in working condition.

"Mahad will arrive here soon." Isis softly announced from beside me. I turned to her to find her watching me closely.

I still didn't know what to think of our softly spoken conversation the night before - of the council she had offered while I'd watched Kaiba flee the light of his own campfire, but there was no time to dwell on it as her newest words gently struck me.

Hearing that my most ardent champion would soon be meeting us here lit a hopeful fire at my core.

He'd been tracking Teleia for as long as she herself had been hunting us. It wasn't a surprise that he would eventually converge with us here at the site she'd been defeated. It was very welcome news. Mahad had a more rounded knowledge of Kaiba than anyone else in my priesthood and after last night I would welcome the council of another, or just the chance to tell him of the unexpected development. Simply thinking about it filled half of me with the deep trepidation that comes from knowing a thing to be a bad idea and continuing to do it anyway, while the other half wished nothing more than to jostle Kaiba awake right now and continue from where we had been interrupted to see the conclusion. The feeling was capricious, intoxicating and foolish to let run unbridled.

I closed my eyes and took a slow breath to center myself, exhaling the rebel impulses from my mind with a steady and cleansing exhalation. As I reopened them I was calm once more, the poise of a Pharaoh worthy of my ancestor's bloodline firmly in place.

"By your leave, I would like to go on ahead and meet him." Isis quietly requested and I granted her it immediately with a nod of my head. With Kaiba, Isis and Mahad at my side we'd make short work of Anubis and put his villainy to an end. What that end would mean for Kaiba and I, I didn't know now. It was admittedly short-sighted but I placed my belief in destiny once more and forced any second guesses out of my mind, determined not to smother a flame with such doubts when it had barely begun to spark, let alone catch fire. I trusted we would meet our fate when the time came, whatever it was.

Near soundlessly Isis rose from her seated position in a slow smooth motion. She cast one last curious glance over her shoulder towards Kaiba before gracefully picking her way between the fallen leaves and loose natural debris that blanketed the oasis's grounds to noiselessly make her way from our camp and toward the mouth of the canyon that acted as the single long corridor of entry into this sacred place.

As soon as she was beyond my vision vanishing into the foliage I followed her example.

I watched Kaiba closely for signs of stirring as I crept over to the golden Duel Disk at his side, trusting my footfalls to be too quiet to wake him.

His eyes pinched together tightly as I approached and his mouth morphed into an unconscious sneer but still he remained asleep, even as I came near enough to collect my Duel Disk and take a seat on the ground beside his tree. The device slid onto my arm just as comfortably the second time as it had done the first and with its return I could finally liberate Yugi from the Millennium Puzzle.

Yugi! And where was the Puzzle?

The familiar weight of it around my neck was gone and I could scarcely believe I hadn't noticed its absence earlier! I'd grown used to living without it in the many months spent in my afterlife before finally retrieving it from the living world after the battle against Diva, but that was no excuse. I jerked my head around our campsite searching for it in the pre-dawn darkness that threw everything into impenetrable shadows. When did I even recall last having it? I frowned, casting my mind back. It had rattled against my chest as I'd leaned into Kaiba's draconic wing beats - that I recalled clearly. Had it been lost in the crash? Was it lying somewhere scattered into pieces, or worse - sunk to the bottom of the oasis?

I collected myself and analyzed the cards at play. It wasn't the only part of my regalia to be missing, after all. Several pieces of my jewelry were also mislaid and that was an unlikely coincidence.

_"Why are you undressing me?"_

_"You have a fever. I'm getting all this crap off you so I can bring down your temperature."_

Ah. That was why.

Knowing approximately where to look I cast my eyes to the place Kaiba had lain me yesterday and found the Item's telltale silhouette unassumingly crowning a small pile of cast off finery. I collected the Puzzle from its resting place swiftly.

The fevered memory of Kaiba's cool fingers touching my hot, bare skin and the feeling of the silken cinnamon hair that lined the back of his neck pressed against my cheek as I rested my head on his shoulder stirred me in a way that had little to do with sleep. The intense reaction seemed inappropriate given that the person of interest was obliviously unconscious nearby. It was a feat of either trust or fatigue that seemed difficult for Kaiba given the last time I'd seen him attempt to rest and I wouldn't permit myself to sully it.

It shamed me to realize too that this was the first time I'd thought about Yugi's plight since the cave.

The terrible breathless feeling that had struck me there; riding on Kaiba's back as he flew for the first time in his dragon state; the overwhelming rush of last night - all of it had banished Yugi from my thoughts. Even only temporarily that was unacceptable. Knowing Yugi he'd understand that I'd become caught up in other things and that only made my own callous disregard for my partner sting more painfully. I owed him an apology.

_"I'm sorry, Yugi. Forgive me."_ I willed into the Puzzle's depths as I held it in my hands.

Once more I received no reply, sensing only the yawning darkness of the Puzzle's core. As soon as I was convinced of his safety outside of the Item I would try my hand at releasing Yugi regardless, and with Teleia defeated and two of my priests arriving the chance was fast approaching.

The Duel Disk restarted not a moment too soon with a soft jingle that was far too cheerful to be something of Kaiba's choosing. It loaded up quickly, eagerly rendering my holographic interface and informing me of all the updates to card statuses that had been made while it was in stand-by mode somewhere in the stomach of Bird of Roses. Apparently Kaiba had been busy with more than just dismantling his Duel Disk while I was sleeping. His Kaiser Seahorse had been swapped to attack mode, which meant it had been returned to the field – based on the card log Kaiba had done this in reaction to one of Anubis's unknown face down cards having been sent to the Graveyard, leaving the necromancer with only one card left on the field to call his own.

I searched the vicinity for the sea serpent that Kaiba had named his Deck Master during our time in his step-brother's Virtual World but couldn't see the monster.

"Where is it?" I wondered aloud, my question was little more than a murmur.

"Around." Came a hoarse reply from my side.

Though he hadn't otherwise moved I turned back to meet Kaiba's piercing blue gaze studying me carefully and I became locked in an impromptu staring contest with him as he pinned me with a long fixed look, as if waiting for me to blink.

I closed down the Duel Disk's interface and returned its creator's stare, if only to rise to his challenge.

Muttering something about coffee beneath his breath Kaiba broke our eye contact a moment later, turning away slightly to clear his throat and massage his right temple beneath the thick fringe of his hair. "You're feeling better, huh." He quipped, his eyes snake-like as he tossed the unimpressed gibe over his shoulder at me, but I suspected his sarcasm was only a means to shield genuine questions that he perceived to be too 'soft' for his pride to permit asking outright.

"I am." I confirmed evenly, watching as Kaiba sat up properly and subtly rolled his shoulders. The movement was only very slight, as though he was trying to hide it despite the fact I already knew about the injury. I felt a prick of disappointment at the surly sight. Yesterday we'd broken new ground and I didn't like the idea that Kaiba may have already begun trying to retreat back into our previous status quo.

"Your shoulder-" I pointed to the left one, testing the waters by asking "-does it still hurt?". Kaiba stilled immediately. The look he leveled at me in return was cold and studious. His lips pressed into a thin line as I watched him and after scoffing to himself he turned away to stare at a nearby shrub.

"It's a torn labrum, and it aches." He grunted to the plant.

Small as it was that admission of minor discomfort, of what he perceived to be weakness, reassured me with only two words that things were indeed now different.

"I'll probably need another arthroscopic shoulder surgery once I get back." He added with a scowl, no longer bothering to hide his actions as he worked his hand around his shoulder and kneaded the joint. "There's a bunch of pins in the bone that are supposed to keep it anchored, but at least one's loose. That's the only reason you could leverage it out of place."

I wasn't familiar with the bodily terminology of Kaiba's time and a 'labrum' wasn't a word Yugi had known either. I raised my eyebrow at him, hoping for some sort of explanation and wondering if I would receive one.

Kaiba rolled his eyes at me as if he expected it to be common knowledge but nevertheless answered me.

"It's the ring of cartilage around the rim of the shoulder socket that helps stabilize the joint." he explained.

"Ah." I hummed back, concluding that conversation without words.

Asking about the injury's original source was ill-advised, akin to deliberately triggering an enemy's face down card without any prepared counter-measures. There was a deep, stormy intensity in Kaiba's expression as he watched me, clearly waiting for me to ask any number of questions that we both knew were a logical, if foolish, follow up. It was as though his anger was a hungry pet he had yet to feed this morning and was searching for any provocation that might volunteer me to be its first meal of the day. I denied him the trigger he was so expectantly waiting to hear and turned to the sky instead. Within a moment Kaiba withdrew his blade of attention and focused it elsewhere, rotating his shoulder fully and gritting his teeth in part as he did so, then relaxing it. He patted smooth the leather padding of his coat's shoulder pad before turning his face away from mine to leer fiercely at the horizon with me.

It was oddly peaceable, being sat here on the sand beside Kaiba, especially after our heated exchange the night before. Together we watched the orange rays of Ra's solar barge spill new light to banish away the deep indigo of the night sky as the sun began to crest over the horizon - neither of us apparently ready to talk about the night before, yet. The dawn slowly began to restore color and detail to the rocks and plants around us that had been cast into deep silhouettes by the moon, breathing warmth into the world once more. I crossed my legs and leaned back, resting my palms against the soft earth and catching the outer edge of my hand against Kaiba's in the process. The motion drew his attention away from the sky and down to the ground where our two hands now lay side by side on the earth.

"Tch." He glanced back up to my face, his expression as stony as ever.

For a brief moment he lifted his hand up and away from mine. It hovered in the air in what I suspected his unreadable expression was trying to disguise as anything other than a moment of hesitation before he finally lowered it back down to place it on top of my own - stiffly, yet loosely gripping my hand as he covered it. His touch was tentative; enough so to give me room to flip mine upward from beneath it so our palms touched and I could weave my fingers between his. Despite being much taller than me his hands weren't that much larger than my own, the difference lying mostly in the extra length of his slightly longer digits. Belatedly he returned the gesture and curled them around my hand to mesh the two together just as we had last night.

"This feels weird." Kaiba critiqued, bluntly. The statement was so true and pointedly factual it made me laugh unexpectedly.

"Yes, it does." I eventually agreed. Yesterday's potent torrent of emotions had abated and without it this all felt more than a little abnormal. Not unpleasant, but strange. "We could stop." I noted as a neutral observation. Stopping was indeed within our power.

"It's fine." came Kaiba's bland reply. His eyes sliced over to mine, only returning to the sky after I nodded in agreement.

Then so it was.

We sat together in silence, both trying to exude our usual confidence even while the quickening pulse in my veins and the beginnings of a layer of cool sweat slicking Kaiba's palm threatened to expose us.

This excitable anxiety was something I'd experienced through Yugi when he was faced with public speaking or presentations of his schoolwork in the classroom, but I'd rarely felt this way myself while alive. I was born to be a Pharaoh, groomed to be beyond this sort of compromising nervousness. I'd faced down many powerful foes without ever feeling this fretful, including Kaiba himself. Now in this unfamiliar arena I was just an initiate, still trying to understand the workings of a new role without sabotaging it in the process.

"What were you doing to your Duel Disk?" I was curious, but also wondered if the distraction of diplomatic conversation might make us both feel more grounded.

As if reminded of its existence Kaiba began gathering up the components with his free hand and slotted them back into place in an impressive show of ambidextrousness. "Transplanting some components. One of the tertiary projection coils in yours was damaged, so I swapped it out for one of mine." He held a small band which I assumed to be the coil in question captive between his fingers to demonstrate, before slipping it into a hidden pocket on the inside of his coat.

"I see." I doubted doing so was Kaiba's preferred solution and was likely the only choice he had left but I added "I appreciate that." nevertheless.

"Save it." He chided testily, confirming my suspicion as he pressed the shell of his Duel Disk back into place over the components. "Our odds are better if at least one of us has a fully operational Duel Disk, and mine's already damaged." He grimaced at the device for good measure, as though testing if he could glower it back into functionality.

"Did Kaiser Seahorse despawn again?" I pressed, watching with mild fascination as Kaiba managed to maneuver a small screwdriver one-handed and drove the screws that held the Duel Disk's case together back into place. The motions seemed well practiced.

"No." Kaiba's answer was dismissive and disinterested as he worked on his device. "It's still here." he added, most likely meaning he had purposefully placed the monster out of sight.

"You've hidden it." I concluded aloud. Knowing how his mind worked and with an imposing statue much greater than Kaiba's own there was only one place that he would think to conceal it. His eyes pinched as I glanced across the still waters of the oasis, his irked expression telling me I had guessed its hiding place correctly.

He sneered back, "It's a precaution" clearly frustrated to have been so easily figured out.

"A precaution?" I repeated, the unspoken question of 'why' inherent in my tone.

"Don't be stupid." Kaiba scoffed back. I narrowed my eyes and raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for a worthy explanation for his rudeness. The one I received was unexpected. "If Ishizu was compromised during your duel with Anubis-" Her name was Isis, and he knew it, but that was beside the point. "-Then we have to assume the other one was too."

'The other one' I took to mean Mahad, based on the context.

I'd spoken to the Magician myself after Anubis's first defeat in my throne room and hadn't detected anything strange in his manner.

No, that wasn't true.

He'd seemed distant and absent in a way I hadn't been able to describe, only sense. I'd thought it was just a momentary distraction created by his concern for Isis.

If there was any chance that Kaiba's suspicion was true then that would place Isis was in very real danger. I twisted my head around to look in the direction she had departed in so quickly it nearly pulled a muscle in my neck.

"Relax." Kaiba huffed tonelessly. "I let her in on my hypothesis last night after I finished patching your Duel Disk. She said she'd go ahead to check it out." He dismissed the tiny hologram and went back to his repairs, tossing the careless statement of "It's a solid theory - but I'll believe it when I see it." in my face as he did so.

I threw a scolding look at Kaiba and his sheer lack of care for the situation, or Isis's safety. He steadfastly ignored it, paying more attention to playing with his device than to my rage. Had Kaiba suspected this from the outset? "When did you intend to tell me this?" I demanded. He may not think of either Isis or Mahad as being 'real' or my friends, but Kaiba knew I did and he'd withheld the information nevertheless.

"Tch." Kaiba's eyes raised from his tinkering to narrow at me. His shoulders stiffened immediately at the heat in my voice, and the oaf matched it with a standoffish counter of "Whenever the hell I felt like it!", defiant and rebellious apparently just for the sake of it despite the grave stakes. "It wasn't relevant before. The information only just became useful - and now I'm using it." We glared at each other for a long moment, Kaiba mirroring my deserved rage with his own. "We've done nothing but react to these dolts. It's time to change that!" he hissed.

I relented my reprimanding expression, finding a logic in Kaiba's drive to strike out and proactively seize an advantage over our foe.

If Mahad indeed had fallen under the sway of another of Anubis's minions we could use its expectation of our ignorance to gain the upper hand. It was a clever play. One I couldn't begrudge if Isis had willingly agreed to be a part of, yet somehow the idea of being left in the dark agitated my temper. During my life entrusting my priests to work without my knowledge to protect my throne and my realm had come naturally.

Why only now did leaving them to do so of their own accord feel so disquieting?

"It's not that I doubt you, or your intentions." I faltered, considering my own question. Kaiba's dark look grew only sharper at my pause. I looked away from it, contemplating my words carefully.

"I suppose I've grown unaccustomed to having my battles fought for me." I frowned to myself. "In your world I became so used to the fate of the world weighing on me alone." It was an admission and an unspoken apology fused into one. During my time as the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle I'd assumed the role of Yugi's guardian and protector. Now it was difficult to fall back into the opposite role and in turn be protected by others as was the expectation of the Pharaoh of Egypt.

Kaiba snorted derisively. "Whatever happened to 'you're never alone if you've got friendship' and all that bull?" he challenged, though he did add a mocking lilt to his words.

I regarded him for a moment, wondering if he realized that by throwing that argument in my face he was on some level also acknowledging that we were indeed friends. If he did then his sour face certainly gave nothing away.

I chuckled at that and blinked slowly. "Well said." I taunted, followed sincerely by, "You're right."

Something in the way Kaiba held his jaw seemed to ease slightly, which I took to mean the spat was forgiven. Kaiba only grunted at me in reply, even as the tense grip of the hand covering mine relaxed.

With the hostility in the air lifting I returned my thoughts to my Magician and the matter at hand. If Mahad was as similarly afflicted as Isis had been then he'd make a truly formidable foe.

From beside me Kaiba scoffed at something without bothering to verbalize what and struck me off-balance with a toneless comment of, "Get rid of Isis once she's back."

I balked at his brazen and surly order.

His eyes fixated on a spot in the distance, refusing to meet mine which was always suspect when dealing with him given his usual determination to stare his opponents into cinders. "This is our fight. She'd just get in the way." Unwittingly Kaiba echoed my previous thoughts aloud with his next words; "And it'll be much worse than fighting Teleia was." He remarked, only now breaking the link of our hands so he could finish sealing up his Duel Disk once again and slipping the cuff back onto his wrist and arm. "Pegasus makes up a lot of Duel Monsters cards himself and if even half of the Dark Magician adjacent cards are based on things this one can actually do then it's a wide and varied arsenal. Wiping out their high attack monster cards isn't going to matter if he nukes us with spells and traps." He summarized as he busied himself with restarting the unit and navigating its interface.

Kaiba's knowledge on the subject didn't surprise me. As my most diligent rival I expected he was especially attentive to all cards he thought Yugi and I would consider as candidates for our deck and empowering the Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl had always been one of our most versatile strategies.

Kaiba crossed his arms as he finished fitting the device and sneered. "Pegasus sure knows how to panda to consumer demand." Disapproval dripped from his words and there was a note of petulance in them. "He throws out a new Dark Magician themed card spell or trap card every quarter since there's so many mid-tier duelists running imitations of your deck. Now it's one of the most overpowered monsters in the game."

Did he realize the irony that he of all people was complaining about a card being too powerful? I doubted it, though it certainly amused me.

"Plus it's unoriginal." He concluded with clear distaste.

Though he was ever determined to shout his personal beliefs across an arena when we dueled it was strange to hear him protest so openly about something so trivial as card releases. I focused on his last comment since it was a safer topic of conversation. After all, with just one glance at his attire no one could ever deny that Kaiba was indeed 'original' beyond all else. I could understand his apparent abhorrence of imitators. The cards a true duelist chose for their deck said much about them, who they were and what they believed in. "A deck should be personal; a reflection of the duelist who plays it." I agreed.

"No. A deck should be powerful." He defiantly snapped back. "But copying someone else's is just cutting corners."

I smirked at that. "You've just proven my point, Kaiba." Previously Kaiba's ire had been aimed at the non-present 'mid-tier duelists', but as I noted that his eyes narrowed on me. "You idolize power above all else and your deck is built with that philosophy at its foundation." I noted.

And that wasn't all. Kaiba's decks brimmed with dragons, machine-types and Light attributed monsters. Those choices weren't coincidental, though he would loath to admit that. Beyond that his decks also harbored less aspirational cards; a dark undertow of viruses and germs lurking beneath the surface ready to infect and corrupt. Slowly those cards had become less essential to him over the years. Pandemic Dragon had been the only monster in that vein to make an appearance during our duel in my throne room. It was a sign of times changing.

"So?" came Kaiba's monosyllabic retort.

"So, a personal belief influences your card selection." I continued, "Therefore, your deck is just as personal to you as ours is-" I stumbled on the word, correcting myself without missing a beat. "-was, to Yugi and I." With Kaiba by my side everything felt so alarmingly present and immediate that for a moment it was easy to forget I'd left that life behind.

"Hnh."

Kaiba didn't bother to articulate this thoughts on the matter any more than that, but since decoding the meaning of that particular low sound I took the grunt of reluctant agreement as it was.

The hand that he had finished using to re-situate his Duel Disk returned to its original place on the ground and I placed mine on top of it, wanting to restore the cautious link between us that had been temporarily broken. Kaiba's breathing hitched discreetly as I ran a finger over his skin, closely watching him through the corner of my eyes to gauge his tolerance of the touch.

His stoic face was unrevealing but a second later he lifted up my hand and turned my palm upwards to study it with an intense focus.

What had prompted such a reaction mystified me until he experimentally ran his much softer fingers over one of the slightly hardened calluses of my hand. They were the tokens of a childhood spent riding and sparring and the skin there was much less sensitive and rough to the touch, which was most likely what had drawn his interest in the first place. He inspected them, running his eyes and thumb over one on my palm and several on my fingers as if charting them in his mind. If he found them unattractive he gave no indication, his calculating expression resembling something closer to scientific curiosity than disapproval. His investigation concluded without comment and he threaded his fingers back through mine in silence.

The acceptance was bolstering so I leaned towards him, coaxing Kaiba to do the same if only to meet me in battle.

I wasn't surprised when a muscle in his cheek only twitched unsurely in response.

Pressing my tongue against his the night before had been a misstep. I'd seen that in his reaction alone. Our ideas of normal expressions of affection varied and that mistake had proven that falling back on whatever insights I'd reluctantly absorbed while Yugi watched the 'adult' video tape that Tristan had once borrowed from the video store for he and Joey wasn't a reliable strategy. Confident as Kaiba and I both were as duelists that didn't extend to this new and strange contest, and dueling with someone else's cards was hindering me.

I returned to what I knew, needing nothing but stillness from Kaiba to do so as I bridged the distance between us and pressed my nose against his.

The act was as intimate to me as a kiss mouth to mouth was to him.

Down the length of his sharp nose Kaiba's eyes widened a fraction in confusion and he reared backward, his shoulders tensing momentarily as if to pull away even further before relaxing again as he rapidly acclimatized to the previously unfamiliar gesture. I didn't expect he would understand and he was wary even as he reapplied the end of his nose to mine, but it endeared me regardless.

The contact was tender and short-lived as the dawn concluded before us.

After a few moments the two of us parted again in the mutual understanding that there was little time to further explore this newest arena. We needed to be better prepared for what could potentially be a fast-approaching battle. Wordlessly I rose to my feet to reclaim the rest of the jewelry and clothing that Kaiba had stripped from my body the day before, while he turned his attention to the device on his arm and pursued the now familiar sight of his Duel Disk's holographic diagnostic screen.

Kaiba was right; we held an advantage and it was time to seize it.

* * *

**AN:** Kaiba's shoulder injury in this story was actually inspired by a scene towards the end of _Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light._ In it Anubis tosses Kaiba across the stadium and despite landing on his back somehow it's Kaiba's shoulder/arm that ends up injured. I found that a bit strange, so it inspired me to think of reasons to justify the reaction.


	24. Chapter 24

**Yugi**

"Yugi, are you alright?"

I clutched the side of my head and rejoined Yami in the hallway, still trying to walk off Kaiba's super intense caffeine migraine from a few memories ago as the door I'd just come back through closed behind me. If he had headaches like that all the time it was no wonder he was so testy.

"Yeah I'm okay." I shot Yami back a smile. Being cooped up in that other room and not able to get out and lead the charge must have been frustrating but he was keeping it together so I would too.

"That one wasn't so bad." I added. It really hadn't been. I'd almost enjoyed reliving it actually.

We'd been back in Duelist Kingdom so I already knew the memory because I'd actually been there in person, but seeing it all from Kaiba's perspective changed things. He was so much taller than me that seeing the world through his eyes was a bit disorientating.

Once again the memory had placed me into his shoes, letting me feel everything he did - which was mainly focus and discomfort as he stepped down from his helicopter. It wasn't much of a greeting, but "I haven't seen you since our duel, Yugi." was as close as those got for Kaiba.

"Uhum. Oh! Here, your deck." I watch myself nod and then pull out the second deck that had been burning in my pocket since Yami's duel with what the gang had started calling 'Ghost Kaiba'. "I've been keeping it for you. Just think of it as a thank you for that duel you helped me win."

My first thought seeing this all again was 'Oh wow, was that really what I'd sounded like'? Hearing my voice back on a recording was always embarrassing. I thought I'd gotten over it since I'd used one of my Dad's old voice recorders to prep for my valedictorian speech, but watching myself and hearing it in person in one of Kaiba's memories was different.

"Thanks." Kaiba's appreciation was honest. I'd been able to tell at the time too from how simple his reply had been, but I could feel that even more clearly now. As he held up the deck a relief to a discomfort he hadn't even known he had washed over him. I'd thought back then it was a sign that he trusted me when he didn't shuffle through them to check on his cards - it'd given me hope that we could be friends. I'd been half wrong, and half right. Kaiba did trust me, even back then when he really had no reason to, but also he could already feel all three of his Blue-Eyes were safe and sound in his deck where they belonged just by holding it in his hand.

He was thankful for their return, but didn't know how to show it. "You'll be compensated for all of your trouble." Was what he decided on saying.

After that he tried to take off. His body ached and was stiff - every time he took a step toward the Pegasus's castle his muscles felt weak and the fabric of his clothing pulled painfully against raw spots on his back despite how loose the outfit was, by Kaiba's usual standards anyway. Back then Kaiba had seemed calm and put together but I could feel he was anything but as Joey got up into Kaiba's space and in Kaiba's mind volunteered himself to be the victim of his prototype Duel Disk test.

It was funny seeing that early model. Things sure had changed a lot. Back then it actually did look like a disk and had to be hurled around like a yo-yo.

Kaiba's arm got tired quickly after tossing it out onto the field a few times, but the ruthless pleasure he got from humiliating Joey in front of the rest of us energized him like a shot of pure adrenaline. Kaiba really liked riling up Joey for some reason. I could feel how much of a rush he got from it as he kept trash talking him but his insults hid something else underneath. He was waiting I'd realized; waiting to see Yami, maybe even trying to lure him out by making an example out of Joey. Joey threw out monster after monster, only to be cut down by Kaiba's Rabid Horseman and all the way through those turns Kaiba had kept watching me in his peripheral vision.

Kaiba had wanted to see him appear so badly, and even Kaiba himself thought that was unusual. It was just an uncontrolled feeling that he couldn't explain; like he was pulled to Yami and me. It irritated and fascinated him at the same time and was so strong I could still feel it even through his overwhelming concern for Mokuba.

I knew now what it was, even though Kaiba didn't.

In this memory it would be a while before we found out about Yami's past but already Kaiba had been feeling the invisible tether that linked us all together pulling at him. I had no idea he'd ever felt it so strongly, especially as early in our association as this was.

With each moment Yami and I hadn't switch places Kaiba had become surer and surer that he'd never existed in the first place; that either he was the manifestation of some sort of psychological breakdown, or Yami had been just some amazing opponent that he'd dreamed up to entertain his own wish for a challenge. I could feel it as the sharp edge of his curiosity was blunted by disappointment and for a minute there'd just been a cold feeling of absolute dismissal.

Kaiba wouldn't like it, but seeing all that stuff only made me more determined to make our friendship happen when we were all together again.

With the duel done he'd turned his back on us and stalked away, trash talking us in case he was wrong about Yami not existing but also feeling hopeless at the same time because he thought he was right.

The thing was I remembered that day just as well as Kaiba did.

Our partnership had been rough around the edges back then but I could remember how the strong courageous presence inside of me had edged closer and closer to the surface to watch Kaiba duel, wanting to see if he'd managed to banish away his darkness now that Kaiba was awake again. As Kaiba trashed Joey I'd been able to feel how angry it'd made the spirit; because Joey was our friend and Kaiba was toying with him, and also because he'd wanted Kaiba to be better than that. He knew Kaiba wouldn't agree to come along with us even before I did, but he didn't want to see he him leave without saying something to him.

"Kaiba, we may not agree with each others methods, but at least we understand that Pegasus must be stopped." They were Yami's words, but I'd said them. Maybe Kaiba could sense that, since he actually turned around one final time to reply.

"I hope you succeed in rescuing your brother." I added.

I guess that was confusing. Kaiba wasn't sure which one of us he was talking to, or if there even were multiple people to talk to. "And I hope you succeed in your ventures." he replied, aiming that at me. "Lets just hope our paths don't cross again before this is all over." he concluded for Yami, just in case.

In a way the memory had made me nostalgic for those early days – out on an adventure with my best friends, meeting all the other duelists and discovering the secrets of the Millennium Items.

"It was back in Duelist Kingdom" I told the holographic Yami, grinning at him as he continued leaning casually against the doorway. We'd really been through so much since then.

Yami's expression instantly switched from curiosity to a troubled frown. It was the sort he wore the night before we were about to duel and the fate of the world was hanging in the balance. He paused for a long time before replying and when he did his voice was solemn and slightly self-depreciating which wasn't something that was normal for him at all.

"I'm sorry you had to revisit that day."

I blanked on what he was talking about.

Duelist Kingdom had happened for all the wrong reasons and Grandpa's soul had been at stake but despite that I had mostly warm memories of it. Meeting Mai and Mako, watching Joey win his first duel all on his own and earn his Red-Eyes Black Dragon and lots of other memories too. Of course there had also been less pleasant ones, like running away from giant fake boulders and being trapped in the Dark Magician card by the Spirit of the Millennium Ring, and having to call back Yami's attack when he-

"-Oh! No it wasn't that." Yami's eyebrows jumped up in surprise as I waved my hands in front of me to ward away the idea. Actually, that memory would have made a lot more sense than the one I'd seen but it hadn't come up yet. Maybe Kaiba didn't think about it all that much, or as much compared to Yami anyway.

"You still think about that duel, huh?" I asked quietly. I could empathize. I would never forget it either.

It'd been scary. I'd waited until the last moment to call the attack off and I was so afraid that I'd stepped in too late. I'd never have been able to forgive myself if Kaiba really had fallen off the castle wall and died.

"I do." Yami admitted, shifting his weight between his feet slightly.

If alternative universes did exist and there was one of them that I'd been too late in what would that world look like? I couldn't even imagine how different things would have played out if there had been no Kaiba around. Yami and I would never have had the chance to see how Pegasus's Millennium Eye worked in their exhibition match afterwards, and without Kaiba that would mean there would have been no Battle City, no trump card against Marik's dark side, no Virtual Worlds, no Grand Prix – the list went on and on. Duelists would probably even still sit down to duel, like in the old days.

Now that I was thinking about it Kaiba had in some unintentional way been pushing us through almost every step of the way since the very beginning.

Yami - the real Yami, so Atem, had called Kaiba 'a valued opponent'. I hadn't really understood why. I'd guessed it was because dueling him had made Yami stronger; strong enough to fulfill his destiny and complete his journey. I think I'd just figured out what he'd really meant and if I was right then he'd really downplayed that title.

"Though, I wonder why that is." Yami continued, his sombre tone change into something more inquisitive. "I'm made from Kaiba's mind, and I doubt he thinks about it at all."

I laughed awkwardly, feeling a drop of sweat creep down my forehead. I didn't think we'd ever get that answer. "The one take away I'll have from all of this is Kaiba's mind works in weird ways." I offered, trying to lighten up the mood.

Yami blinked at me slowly before agreeing with a faint grin. "That's true." I beamed it right back, loving the familiar camaraderie of our partnership even if this Yami wasn't totally real.

"It's interesting to see through Kaiba's eyes. Sort of like playing a character in a video ga-"

"GAAAROOOOOOOOUUUUUU!"

I didn't get to finish. I barely had time to duck as Yami lunged forward to put his hand on top of my head. His finger tips faded out as they left the bounds of his room but his arm stretched far enough to forced us both down to lie prone on the floor. I sure missed having his reaction time. It was a real life saver when scary things started happening.

The thunderous roar echoed through the hallway. It was so loud both of us had to cover our ears with our hands and I pinched my eyes closed against the volume as it echoed around my mind. It shook the corridor and everything in it, including all of the doors. There was too many noises to keep track of - smashes, rattling and a lot of banging as a current of bright white electricity zapped across the doorways over our heads. It crackled loudly enough for me to hear it and was so close it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end even more as it arced from one door to the next. The way everything was rumbling and shaking made it seem like an earthquake, but the bouncing lightning was closer to a freak storm.

"What is this?" I shouted over the opening and slamming of doors. Ow, it really didn't help the memory of Kaiba's coffee headache still pummeling brain.

Yami's teeth were gritted as he shook his head. "I don't know."

"Kuuu-Umph!"

We stayed crushed to the floor as a door close to us exploded off of its hinges and went flying in a trail of splinters. Further down the hall way I heard that same sound again as another one must have done the same thing. I closed my eyes tighter against the tiny bits of wood and kept raining down until the noises began to stop and I could finally pull away my hands from our ears.

I opened one eye up and watched Yami as he clambered back up onto his feet. "Is it over?"

"Yes." he nodded, but the way his eyes flew wide open as he looked around made me regret asking. I sat up and rubbed the back of my head as Yami leaned down to help me stand.

"W-what happened?" The corridor had survived more or less in tact, but all of the doors had been thrown back open. Some swayed on their hinges from the left over force, while a few others had been splintered or completely ruined. My heart was in my throat but it was the noise ringing in my ears that was more important. "That sound." I turned to Yami and he nodded. We'd both recognized it.

It sounded like a Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

"You two are loud." Quipped a little voice that made me jump.

The door to the memory in the orphanage was open again and the Kaiba from it stood in the doorway. He shivered in his slightly too short pajamas and every one of his breaths was visible as cold air from the room blew out into the corridor.

Maybe he knew what had just happened? I jogged over to him and bent down slightly to get to his eye-level. "Hey again, Kaiba -"

His gloomy blue eyes watched me skeptically as he muffled a cough with his sleeve.

" - Er, Seto?" I corrected, trying his first name instead. It felt a bit weird to say for some reason. At this age he wasn't technically 'Kaiba' at all yet so I pushed that feeling to one side and continued. "Do you know what's going on?" Why had all the doors been reset? Going through them all and trying to close them again wouldn't do any good if they could blast back open again all on their own.

"Why are you outside of your room?" Yami also questioned from his doorway. "Yugi already sealed you once." His tone was sharper than I would have gone with when speaking to a kid. It almost sounded like he was telling the little guy off.

Even though this was a mini Kaiba, it was still Kaiba. I expected him to get sarcastic or snappy, but instead he crossed his arm sulkily and moodily stared upwards at Yami, as if he was put out. I looked as though he didn't like being told off. Or at least, not by Yami.

"You're kinda slow, huh?" 'Seto' muttered sourly.

Yami's stare was intense. He eyed Kaiba just as warily as he would have if he was ten years older and gloating at him from across a dueling area, which only made this Seto cross his arms tighter around his body and subtly shrink away.

"Did you really think closing them all yourself was gonna work?" The little Kaiba added sullenly, hitching his thin shoulders in a small shrug. "All it takes is one little thing and they'll all fly open again."

I sighed slightly. Of course it wasn't going to be that easy. I should have guessed. 'Kaiba' and 'easy' didn't go together.

Yami put his hands on his hips and gazed down at Seto in disapproval. The little Kaiba tilted his head to the side and stared back, trying to match Yami's intensity. I wondered why he was being so full on with this Seto? It was almost like he was suspicious. Instantly I missed sharing my body with Yami - just being able to think that question at him and understand his reasoning as if it was my own.

"What are you not telling us?" He sternly demanded.

"Nothing." Seto snapped back.

"You're bluffing." Yami pressed, not relenting at all.

"Are you saying I'm a liar?"

The other advantage of sharing a body was while inside the Millennium Puzzle was I could have easily tuned them as they'd started to argue. Yami sometimes got a bit of a kick out of arguments, I think he saw them as another sort of game, but they made me feel uncomfortable.

"You know something." He insisted.

Based on the participants I already knew this one was going to go nowhere fast. I guessed I'd go and check things out while they went at it.

"I don't have to tell you anything! I don't even like you!"

Even if they hadn't been slightly open I would have recognized each of the doors as I passed them in the hallway. The older memories were behind weathered doors that looked plainer by comparison, while the ones in the Kaiba mansion had freshly polished door handles like someone had just cleaned them. Yami and Kaiba's bickering became softer as I walked the corridor and peeped through the doorways, checking off in my mind all the ones I'd previously closed that had now blown open again.

"We're trying to help!"

I sighed.

Everything I'd been working towards had been undone, and in just a few moments. I'd need to start again if I had any hope of helping Kaiba, but where to even begin? I was deeper into the hallway than ever before and the darkness here was getting creepy so I turned around to walk back but was stopped in my tracks.

One door was still closed and it didn't look like any of the others. The doors to the Kaiba mansion memories had been well kept and fancy but they couldn't hold a candle to it.

It was a gilded wooden double door covered from the bottom to the top in something that surprised me but really shouldn't have in retrospect; hieroglyphs. If Grandpa was here he'd have a field day.

"Go to hell! I don't need your help! I didn't ask for it -"

Two handles jutted out of either side of double doors and running between them was a long cord of thick rope. It hitched around one handle and then snaked back on itself in a set of spiraling loops to bind around the other. Untying it wasn't going to be easy. The end of the knot vanished into a heavy clay seal that had the faint outline of something marked into it that I couldn't see properly in the low light.

"Hey!" I called back.

"- And I don't want it!" Seto's mouth snapped shut and whatever Yami was about to say got cut off as they turned to see where I'd gone to. It looked like it didn't matter the age or place, once those two got into it they both had tunnel vision.

I pointed to the strange door. "Why is this one still closed?"

Yami's dueling face slipped away as he leaned out of the door way to get a better look at what I was pointing at. He squinted in the darkness, but I could see the moment he picked out the door in the hallway's shadows. His eyes opened extra wide as they landed on the hieroglyphs.

"Can you open it?" The little Kaiba deadpanned, like there was nothing spooky about it being there at all.

I tested the handles and the door rattled but there was no way it was budging with the seal keeping it shut. Sand and dust came away on my hands as I pulled them back. "No." I answered, rubbing my palms together to dislodge the dirt.

"Then that's why, idiot." Seto concluded, unimpressed.

Yami shot him a scolding look. "You'll show Yugi respect."

"I don't respect people who ask dumb questions." The little Kaiba sneered, wavering between looking like a sulky kid and a grumpy teenager.

So it was the only door that didn't open? Wasn't that strange? I didn't understand the logic of this place, if there was any at all. Was that a good thing, or a bad one? I glanced back to Yami who shrugged at me as though he'd been thinking exactly the same thing – like we were still connected together. The nostalgia made me smile.

I guess we'd have to find out.

**Kaiba**

I flicked away my cigarette butt and swapped out my Kaiser Vorse Raider for another trap instead.

Preparing my deck before a duel was standard operating procedure. With only seven available slots and some already cluttered up by useless cards my multi-card combinations would be a hassle to set, especially since I had to 'share' those slots with whatever the Pharaoh played too.

My cards flickered slightly as I revised my selection. They'd get the job done, just so long as the Pharaoh didn't screw things up again by trying to jump the damn line and cut in over me like he had in the desert.

Atem was too busy prepping his own hand and chewing on a date to notice as I glanced back at him.

His game face was on so I could tell he was taking this seriously but watching him chew through a handful of dates at the same time and toss away the pits ruined it. Was eating even necessary here? I was alive so I likely needed to, but I had a duel to win. Until then ignoring such base biological imperatives like hunger was my stock and trade. Plus just the idea of chowing down on the sickly sweet fruit made my teeth ache. I could practically taste the sugar overload from here. The Pharaoh's were a white flash as he bit into another fruit's skin and devoured the yellowish insides with an absent-minded intensity, even as his eyes never left his cards.

Watching him now felt weird.

That was farcical. If anything I had more reasons than ever to keep an eye on him since we'd started doing what we were now doing, but there were too many variables at play. I wanted to draw up a contract and shove it in his face. Once I had his signature on a dotted line I'd be able to assign accurate job descriptions and figure out what fell into the purview of these new roles and what didn't. Case in point, was I now obliged to team up with him against 'Mahad' or did I screw that and duel for myself like always? That was my preference, even though I suspected this was going to devolve into another irritating tag-team situation.

The dawn light glinted off of his rings as Atem flexed his fingers to replaced one final card, then his eyes darted up from his hand to look at me. "Are you ready?" He asked, like he had doubts.

I scoffed at the question. "I'm always ready." Who did he think he was talking to? I'd just defeated Sphinx Teleia alone - he was the one who was recovering from an infection. Isis said he'd be fixed by now and he looked better but there was only so much recovering anyone could do in a single night, even the Pharaoh.

Dripping confidence he sauntered over to my side and pointed a finger towards the cards I was holding. "Let me see what you're planning."

That aggravated me.

Was he was really expecting me to show him my hand? If we were going to work together in our next battle then it was logical, but the idea of openly flashing my cards at him fought against every instinct I had. Willingly submitting to collaborate with someone else was just asking for help in disguise.

Atem didn't move or blink, he just stared bright-eyed at me and waited for me to react like this was some kind of test.

"You first." I grunted.

It was stupid to be so guarded of my cards – especially when I'd just been comparatively less guarded of my whole damn body. I knew that. I had no justifiable reason for holding back, but if I was going to show him then I damn well wanted to see his first.

Atem dipped his head and slowly blinked. The hand that I'd been 'holding', if you wanted to call it that, stretched outwards to me. The gold light of the holograms caught on the angles of his diadem and the smooth finish of arm bands he was wearing around his biceps as he spread the cards in his hand out like a fan.

He'd taken my earlier words to heart since most of them were spells and traps, with only one exception.

"Only one monster?" my question came out sharper than I'd intended.

Since being hobbled using the leftovers from our first duel in the throne room we were now starting to get low on cards. With our shared deck running on the lean side it made sense to play what was left more carefully, but just one monster card seemed over-confident even by his standards. Granted, it was one of the Pharaoh's favorites.

"It's all I'll need." He proclaimed confidently and glanced down at the warrior card briefly before aiming a pointed look back up at my face. "Our goal must be to capture our opponent, not destroy him." His words were toneless but I knew a warning when I heard one. I crossed my arms and turned away from the pompous blowhard.

"My palace has a master interrogator." Atem continued, though now his voice turned stern. "Once we take Mahad's body into our custody Gebelk will be more than capable of extracting Anubis's minion, and whatever else it knows."

A 'master interrogator', huh?

I knew first hand just how useful people like that were to keep around but I didn't see the Pharaoh as the sort to keep that kind of an employee on his payroll. Then again, he hadn't always been as 'noble' as he was pretending to be these days. Yugi was probably in some way responsible for that. Atem's knock-off form of virtuousness was fairly close to his own.

"In fact you may find him familiar." He added, this time with a teasing lilt to his voice.

"Whatever." I didn't bother to ask him to explain the big joke because I didn't care. Knowing this place it probably meant someone else from real life re-cast in Egyptian cosplay was doing the job. Instead I copied his previous move and spread the holographic cards I'd prepared out in my hand for him to look at. My Duel Disk had enough problems to worry about so I'd turned down the brightness of its projections to conserve energy. On the lower setting the blue glow only reached far enough to bounce across the skin of my hand, making it look even paler by comparison as Atem nonchalantly placed his own on my wrist.

He quirked his eyebrow at me as he inspected my selection. "None of your White Dragons?"

"Tch." It wasn't the hand I'd have preferred to play.

Polymerization had gotten into my head more than I'd ever give it credit for. Being an actual dragon had been intoxicating. Every time I thought back on it the urge to slash something apart with my own talons, beat my own wings or fry an enemy out of existence with my own breath hit me like a sledgehammer. After my holograms got over themselves and went back to acting the way they were programed to it would be impossible, but with all of this magical crap going on and the card effects acting however they damn well pleased there was a temptation to try and re-create that experience with my cards. Some combination of Tyrant Wing, Burst Breath would get me half way there but appealing as that idea was it'd be only a pale imitation of the real thing.

Ultimately it wasn't an option. Putting together a substandard rip-off like that would dishonor my Blue-Eyes White Dragons.

It didn't matter what this Mahad guy looked like, if he was a Dark Magician then facing off against him was my Blue-Eyes's right. No monster deserved vengeance against that arrogant finger-wagging dunce more than my dragons. Pitting my signature beast against the Pharaoh's was just how it was done – anything else would be off-brand. As much as I wanted to make that happen I couldn't risk it. I'd patched up my Duel Disk, probably enough to render a Blue-Eyes without issue, but watching it crack open and vanish had left some absurd part of me afraid that if I called my dragon to the field it would blast apart again.

It wasn't enough that it physically hurt me when it happened - like being punched in the heart - it also jostled open the cast-iron door to a memory that I hated. It was hard to pin down a 'worst memory' in my lifetime, my own dragon's s rejection had to be a strong contender.

No matter the cost I'd done what was necessary to claim One, Two and Three, so why was roughing up some doddering fossil of an old man a deal-breaker for Four? I didn't understand it, even now. Ripping it up had been its punishment for opposing me; for it ignorantly refusing to be mine like it was meant to be. They were all meant to be mine. My Blue-Eye's White Dragon's. The purest symbol of both rarity and power in the entirety of Duel Monsters short of the God Cards themselves. Only I was a worthy of wielding them and I'd made damn well sure that the whole world knew it. They were the ultimate symbols of pride and destruction and the very embodiment of my soul, if I still had one.

"Kaiba." Atem interrupted.

"What?"

He looked at me like he was trying to see into my brain before eventually shrugging casually. The modern gesture looked out of place coming from someone dressed the way he was. "You were lost in thought."

"So your first move is to call out my name for no reason?" I snarked before scoffing. I'd left his question hanging; that was why. "I get it, you don't like being ignored."

The Pharaoh opened his big mouth like he was going to argue and then stopped before saying anything, frowning thoughtfully instead.

"I suppose not." He eventually concluded, like it was somehow news to him.

"Well get over it."

I guessed most of his toadies didn't have the luxury of ignoring him, since he was their king. Blanking him was probably a capital offense, or some passive aggressive form of minor treason. Such nonsense. With a flick of my fingers my holographic cards slid back together into one tidy pile, ready for Isis's call when she got back from playing scout. That should be any time now.

"If we're done flashing our cards then you'd better be ready to-" My sentence died in the air as I glanced back at the Pharaoh.

He'd pursed his lips together tightly until they jutted out slightly. Instead of being annoyingly quirked at me in a half-baked taunt or tightly drawn towards the bridge of his nose like his game face his dark eyebrows were now subtly curved downwards in a U-shape.

"Are you pouting?" My voice came out every bit as incredulous as I felt and I could barely suppress my own face from pulling stupefied frown. I tried covering it up with a scowl and could tell the half-and-half expression I was making was probably just as as idiotic as his based on how uncomfortably the muscles in my face pulled against each other.

"Of course not." His expression didn't change even as he protested that "Pharaoh's don't 'pout'. Such childishness is beneath them."

Screw holding hands, making out and nose kissing – this was now officially the strangest thing yet.

"Stop it." I demanded. "It makes your face look stupid."

Trying to parse the difference between the regal pomp of the King of Games, my semi-unbeatable eternal rival, and the face he was currently pulling was scrambling my brain. He wasn't allowed to look that – what was the word? Petulant? Young? Normal? Human? Mortal? Some combination of those terms.

"As does yours." He huffily parried, like a little kid.

It was also vaguely – something else.

Urgh.

I hated the word even as I identified it.

It was 'cute'. Even just thinking that, about him, made my skin crawl.

Damn it. Our whole dynamic was a duel. Where did he get off with changing the rules of our game half way through by looking like that? Now I wanted to kiss him again, just to wipe that moronically winsome look off of his face.

To hell with it! I was Seto Kaiba and I'd do whatever I wanted.

I reached forward towards his chest, snatched the cord around his neck that was keeping the Puzzle in place and yanked on it until he fell forward toward me with a startled. "Umph!"

As humiliating as it was 'cute aggression' was a well documented neurological phenomenon and I fully blamed that for the sudden and intense urge to maul him. I pulled him against my body with more force than I'd intended and bit back a hiss as the impact accidentally rocked our hips together.

Atem wasn't cowed for even a second.

He used the residual momentum to turn the tables and pivoted me slightly so I was up against a tree. In unison he stretched up as I bent my knees and braced my back against the trunk to even out the height difference.

Apparently it didn't take much to get him in the mood. I could feel that as we brushed up against each other again – deliberately this time. Even though the angles were right the equilibrium was off as we vacuum sealed our mouths together. One of my hands wound around to the small of his back to keep him balanced and a matching one of his reached up to hook around the back of my head. With his torso pressed up to mine I could feel his heart pounding in his chest just like mine was as we kissed up against each other.

There was a gross string of spit between our mouths that quickly snapped as Atem leaned back and muttered "By the Gods, Kaiba, why is your hair so soft?"

Ridiculous as it was to look at it was good to know my fixation with his expertly coiffed do wasn't all that one sided as he pulled his fingers through the hair on the nape of my neck.

"Because you're comparing a life time of shampoo to what? Washing yourself in forest streams and waterfalls?" I sounded more breathless than I wanted to.

Atem chuckled and pressed his forehead against mine. "I assure you there are no 'forest streams' in Egypt, other than the ones you've brought with you."

"I was being sarcastic." It was the only reply I could come up with as he pulled his fingers back out of there and placed both hands on the side of my jaw like he was trying to hold me in place.

"Is that so?" He quipped, trying to hoist me on my own petard. Smug bastard.

He leaned in to lock our lips together again until I snaked my hands down to his hips to push him off of me.

"Heads up." With a nod I directed his eye line over to the oasis's entrance. Atem followed it, humming as he spotted the shadows of Isis and his Dark Magician creeping around a corner of the canyon walls and into sight.

"It's time." He agreed. The hot flush on his cheeks cooled off in an instant as he poured on the cement of his dueling face and stepped back from me.

"Hnh." I did the same, straightening my spine and standing clear of the tree. "Don't make that face again." I'd meant it to be a warning but it didn't come out that way.

I could count on one hand the few things in the world that actually revved my biological engine and giving my most challenging opponent the keys to the car was a bad move.

"Alright?" Atem replied, clearly confused. It was a statement, but with an upward inflection at the end as if he meant it as a question too.

I turned back to get the first look at our next potential opponent and ignored his sly smirk my peripheral vision.

**Ano**

Teleia was dead.

Though the source of her defeat had sapped the most powerful beasts from Anubis's command it was too little and too late. The Master's power was grown thanks to the life energy collected from Seto Kaiba and the Pharaoh's hapless second death.

I had no recourse as I watched them plummet from the sky to the earth. The bulk of a beast's body had cushioned the Pharaoh's fall but in his draconic form Seto Kaiba's neck and back had been broken, the bones protruding beneath the scales at unkind angles. Ribbons of life energy had poured from his body like steam from boiled water and the sight had filled me with trepidation. For every thread that had escaped into the air Anubis's might was restored.

With this new strength his patience was at its end and I could hold him at bay no longer.

"**Andro Sphinx."**

The Master clawed at my mind, tearing away each hastily made barrier as I formed it. A spike of agony lanced through my very soul in rebuke.

"**You have dared to ignore me for the last time."**

Over and over he crashed his mind into mine as fiercely as the angry tide flays sand from the shore, stealing away the grains of my resistance in one wave after another.

"**You forget yourself. ******It is I who raised you from death! Your will is mine to command.**"**

I had forgotten nothing.

**"It is time to end your pitiful pantomime. Cut down the Pharaoh with the hand of his most trusted champion. Let him taste the anguish of betrayal**** and harvest his life energy so that I might be reborn!"**

It had taken much longer to collect without the Pyramid of Light, but the shed life essence his foes had near fully rejuvenated my Master. His third coming was soon to begin.

**"Fail me**** as Sphinx Teleia did and I shall awaken my new host and take yours instead!" **He thundered within my core, striking through my spirit a final time as lightning does a sickly tree.**  
**

"_Yes, my Master."_

He receded from my mind as the pain lessened in my soul. I would not able to continue my act much longer. The time for waiting and watching was over.

Mahad's consciousness was disquieted by this worrisome new revelation - as was mine as my torment final abated.

I was reluctant to harmonize any further with the Magician for fear of losing my thoughts within his own, yet in tandem we cast our minds backward to the Pharaoh's throne room and the battle therein, thinking carefully. Time had been short. Teleia and I had assumed the bodies of those we could, acting quickly to seize our moment. Was it possible that Anubis placed a sliver of his soul within a new host without our knowledge?

If Anubis's threat held merit then that seed would need to be rooted out if the Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba were to secure a lasting victory. Left unchecked the Master could use this new host to escape elsewhere and begin rebuilding his powers anew in an endless cycle, until he wore down his foes into an inevitable defeat.

This was of grave concern.

For now, however, the time had come to play a new role – the role of the Pharaoh's trusted guardian finally reuniting with his young king after days in the desert hunting Sphinx Teleia.

I released the spell that bound me to my avian form. It had served its purpose well and even unexpectedly shielded me from Teleia's fate. While assuming the deceptive form of a 'Pigeon Token' I had no offensive prowess and as such had been guarded against the virulent effect of Seto Kaiba's 'Crush Card Virus'. I would miss the marvels of flight, but it was a relief to shed the small body.

My host's sandals sank into the gritty sand that lined the belly of the great snaking canyon that acted as the single thoroughfare between the oasis and the desert wastes beyond. The entrance to the pass was an unassuming thing; little more than a thin gap in two looming walls of mountainous red rock. It was barely large enough for two horseman to ride through side by side and near invisible to the naked eye unless one knew where to look. Once it had been well known, but knowledge of the pass had become restricted after the site's desecration. As the Pharaoh's protector and tutor in the ways of magic my host was one of few still initiated in its location. And so, it was a surprise when the softly curving silhouette of a woman met my eyes standing expectantly further along the road.

Teleia's liberated host waited in the canyon patiently for me as I approached.

Her body was sculpted demurely, her hands folded respectfully in her lap, but something in her eyes glimmered with joy as I neared her. Her enthusiasm was misplaced. A fact she was still unaware of. Teleia's refusal to intermingle her mind with the priestess's own was foolhardy, yet a blessing. Without the insight of my deceased 'comrade' there was no way for the priestess to know that while I wore his face, I was not the man I appeared to be as she well hoped.

Mahad roused from his pensive deliberation at the corner of our mind and became observant once more was we drew closer to the priestess.

Though it was small and subdued an attractive smile curved her refined lips upward at the corners as the distance between us shortened. It was a gentle expression and one I suspected she reserved only for my host and he alone. It was quite beautiful, as was she, now that she had been freed from Teleia's distortion.

"Mahad." My host's named uttered low in a soft reverent whisper was her first word.

With an elegant step forward she brought us closer together than I would have willed and the priestess slipped her hands into my own, simply holding them between us and squeezing them in some wordless expression of affection.

It would seem there was more to the relationship of these priests than I had been led to believe.

I returned the gesture, mirroring her muted yet nevertheless very real and present warmth with whatever I could muster of my own, lest she become suspicious.

_"Do her no harm." _

It was the first time my host had sought to commune with me so directly.

His tone was heavy and solemn despite being a wordless manifestation of mere concentrated thought. It carried with it a weight, the terrible burden of knowing that despite now whispering in my ear Mahad was still helpless to stop me. He could not regain control while my essence polluted his body and it would bend to my will regardless of his own, just as surely as mine did to my Master's.

Perhaps that is why I decided that I would placate him.

_"She is not my concern."_

I had no need to keep our peace, but nor did I have any interest in the priestess now that her time as Teleia's vessel had come to an end.

My words set his mind at rest for a moment and the pressure of the Magician's presence became lesser.

"Isis." I greeted, trading my name for hers.

With that mild smile still ever present she separated our hands once more and took a step backward. A respectable distance befitting two priests opening between us once more. Whatever moment had just been shared was subtly veiled like a dagger being returned to its sheath and now she was the Pharaoh's most exalted priestess once more; dutiful and composed despite the disarray Teleia had made of her.

This too, I copied.

"It is pleasing to see your body returned to you. How fairs the Pharaoh?" I led with, playing the role of the boy king's beloved champion once more.

I already knew yet maintained a guise of ignorance. As a Magical Pigeon I had been watching over their fellowship all night, but she could not know of that. In truth there was another question I found more pressing, but one that would seem suspect to ask first. When last I saw her she had been oblivious to my surveillance along with the rest of her cohort, so how had she known to come here and wait for me?

To my surprise my host offered the answer willingly.

He concluded that she must have seen it before, using the prophetic magic of the Millennium Necklace that she once protected. Such insight into my ambitions could foil my ploy, but the knowledge did not dissuade me from pursuing my plot as Mahad hoped. Visions of such a nature were brief, fractured things. There was no reason to assume the priestess was aware of my duplicity given her reactions to me thus far.

Her reply was steady as she stepped aside, one slim arm beckoning me onward toward the heart of the oasis and Pharaoh both. "Fever from a wound befell him but it has broken now." I inclined my head and strode forward down the path as her motion bid me, the priestess easily falling into step at my side and we began toward the site they had last bedded down upon. "The Other Seto has injuries but none are great or worrisome." She added as our footsteps harmonized.

Good. Though far from perfect they were in fair enough condition to do what must be done. I need only ensure my performance was convincing.

"I was doubtful of him when we all stood together outside of the throne room-" the priestess continued, "But I am coming to believe that my doubt was misplaced."

I said nothing, simply letting her fall back into a natural silence. From what I knew of the pair it was their habit to simply co-exist quite comfortably without needing to fill the air with inane platitudes. We did this for several more steps before the priestess spoke once more.

"I sense Chisisi is healthy too." It was a short, innocuous thing to say.

The name was one I did not recognize from Mahad's memories, nor his thoughts. No image readily came to his mind. I could not formulate an appropriate response without proper the context.

_Who is Chisisi?_

I cast that query inside of my host's consciousness, receiving an answer readily and with little interrogation. The priestess's manner of speaking gave nothing away and so it was fortunate that my host obliged me once more and promptly divulged what this 'Chisisi' was. According to him, the name belonged to a horse that had fallen into the Pharaoh's favor in recent days. No doubt it was the very same one I had seen roaming back towards the palace as I had flown over the desert.

"That pleases me to hear. Though he is an unpredictable horse the Pharaoh enjoys him very much." I repeated Mahad's thoughts in my answer, sparing myself the effort of re-phrasing them.

Why was the fate of the Pharaoh's mount such a topic of interest to her?

Isis held my gaze searchingly for a long moment and then her eyes escaped my own. The priestess inclined her head in agreement without further comment, putting the topic to rest with a reaction that was ambiguous by even the lofty standards of her norm. The uncanny sensation of having said something wrong rippled over me with a strength and surety that could only be imparted by the reproachful countenance of an austere woman. Mahad had never misled me before, yet I wondered if my oddly obliging host may have taken advantage of my confidence in him.

A tranquil hush embraced us and the illusion of a companionable quietude settled as we walked, our pace purposeful yet sedate and growing sedater by the moment as the priestess slowed. The decline in speed was deliberate, yet unobtrusive.

"You are unhurried." I noted, forbidding the suspicion I felt from my host's voice. His trust in her was absolute, as mine needed to appear to be.

The priestess nodded back, her reply soft and guileless. "The Pharaoh and the Other Seto need time to prepare themselves."

At that we proceeded in silence. The trek continued at a stroll, the red hue of the canyon walls and sands parting under the occasional assault of a shrub or palm.

It was an odd way to phrase her intent but I understood it no less. She wished them the time and privacy needed to settle after the long night before.

I had observed from the treetops as their association had rapidly escalated to something neither boy seemed sure of how to broach, despite their shared willingness to do so. The development had been unexpected as the pair had done little but row at every given opportunity since my watch began. Mahad felt their actions unwise, akin to attempting to build a grand temple upon quicksand, yet somehow also inevitable if his lack of true surprise was a measure to be judged by. By my host's reckoning a shared fate had always tied the two together at the neck, and a bond as inexplicable and pervasive as one that stretched across time and destiny could quickly be contorted and made to manifest itself in unforeseen ways.

The verdant greenery that had at first appeared in solitary patches grew in number and luster as we very slowly neared the oasis's heart.

Though the priestess at my side seemed relaxed and at peace there was a tension in her aura that my host's more magically attuned body was able to sense, if not see. For all the moments she spent in my presence it did not relent. Only when the distant figures of the Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba lounging by the oasis's waters came into our shared view did it ease.

The two were conversing, quietly, which was in and of itself unusual. This promptly stopped and in tandem they turned to behold us as the priestess and I approached them. The half-eaten date in the Pharaoh's hand was cast aside into the thick greenery of the surrounding brush as Seto Kaiba scoffed at his side and uncrossed his arms. He watched me carefully, while the Pharaoh waited expectantly.

"My Pharaoh." I sank to one knee before him, dutifully bowing my host's head toward the earth, as was his custom.

It was the norm for the Pharaoh to quickly bid his trusted friend to rise when met with such a gesture and it struck Mahad as abnormal when his usual courtesy was not extended. Where normally the Pharaoh's kindly acknowledgement would be there was only a thick silence. Cautiously I raised my eyes from the ground to see the cause of the delay and was surprised to find only one set of eyes were upon me. The oppressive blue stare of Seto Kaiba tracked my every movement behind a stoic glower, while the Pharaoh paid me no mind at all - looking instead towards his priestess.

"What is your verdict, Isis?" He asked her, his voice calm yet weighted with an air of authority that had gone astray more recently while cavorting with the taller boy.

The priestess's reply was simple and solemn. "It is as suspected."

A flame of wrath warmed the Pharaoh's gaze and as he turned back to face me - the heat in it scalded, branding me with understanding.

They were no fools.

They knew of my deception.


	25. Chapter 25

**Ano**

Seto Kaiba smirked down at me, viciously. "It's time to duel." He announced to the oasis. The Pharaoh nodded in agreement as the arm of his pale companion lashed out towards the water. "Kaiser Sea Horse -"

The depths of the oasis at my back erupted into a pillar of water as the great blue and purple sea creature sprang from its depths in a torrential rush of waves and spray.

"Celtic Guardian -" The Pharaoh shouted too with every bit of his pale companion's ferocity.

The greenery in front of me shifted swiftly. In a chorus of rustling leaves a shadow that was neither palm nor shrub rushed forward from its veiled vantage point in a whirl of green and brown.

"Attack!" The two bellowed in unison, thrusting their hands towards me and spiriting their servants into action.

An ambush?

With the flash of a silver blade the Celtic Guardian bared down upon me in a great lunge that drove me back towards the water, until the gold-tipped trident of the Kaiser Sea Horse struck a blunt blow to my back that staggered me back towards the Guardian's sword.

"Be careful of Mahad's body." The Pharaoh lectured Seto Kaiba, as if the foreigner himself had landed the blow.

"Hnh! I know." He argued back, the discord of the exchange contrary to the efficiency with which they had executed their strategy.

I had not prepared to face them yet, but trapped between sword and spear I had little choice but to retaliate. The Master's magic surged to my defense, a bleak black festering lump of a contraption bubbling onto my arm like a sickly boil, and with it the first of Mahad's spells answered my call as I put it into play.

"Thousand Knives!" A hail of daggers rippled outward from my body in every direction. The Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba pulled their arms up to shield their faces and were driven away from me as the wave of blades rained upon them.

"Celtic Guardian, protect Isis!" The Pharaoh commanded.

The pressure of the Guardian's blade and the blockage of my path forward vanished as the Guardian leapt away from me and back to the priestess's side in one powerful jump, stopping only to cover her with the heavy folds of his cloak. I side-stepped the spear of the Kaiser Sea Horse as it lunged to attack and was thankful for my host's magically heightened reflexes. My escape was short lived, putting only several men's worth of distance between me and my foes before the magical Knives finished their flurry.

The Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba lowered their arms from their faces and glanced each other over for a moment, seeing that neither had been damaged. Seto Kaiba was the first to recover his stance and threw his head back in deep mocking laughter.

"Mwhahaha. One thousand knives and not a single hit? Your aim is lousy!" He taunted, a dark amusement playing on his features. "I was hoping for better."

The Pharaoh was not so easily deceived. He frowned down at the Knives that had embedded themselves into the earth at his feet as they vanished into nothingness. "Or perhaps not." He countered. Seto Kaiba's malicious glee lessened into a wary irritation as he glanced side-long at the shorter boy.

"Isis -" the Pharaoh called back without turning away from me. Behind him the Celtic Guardian shook several daggers free from his cape and pulled it back to unveil the unharmed priestess, much to my host's relief. Seto Kaiba shifted at the Pharaoh's side, enough to draw his gaze for but a moment. Sharp blue eyes imparted a message to their red counterpart and in reply there was a curious perk of his eyebrow and then a decisive hum. "- Stay back with the Celtic Guardian." He concluded.

The priestess inclined her head respectfully. "As you wish, Pharaoh."

He nodded with an air of finality and darted his eyes back toward Seto Kaiba. "I'm going first." The Pharaoh added, smirking at him.

Despite the paler boy's ire-filled stare he crossed his arms in disinterested acquiescence. "Get to it then." Seto Kaiba grunted.

The Pharaoh could clearly sense something else was afoot. It mattered not. I would press my attack before he could draw any conclusions.

"Dark Hole." I summoned Mahad's spell with a shout, conjuring a mote of pitch blackness no larger than a grain of sand and bidding it destroy everything in sight as my magic made it swell and twist. In my hands it grew to the size of an egg, and then to be as large as a skull - pulsating with the fury of a dark star.

The Pharaoh steeled himself with a confident yell. "White Hole!"

No sooner had the Pharaoh declared his spell than a whirlwind of pale magic burst into life, spiraling around the growing void of my Dark Hole to sap it into non-existence. The two spells drank in each other's power and negated one another as they shrank away into nothingness and were both destroyed.

"I see you've helped yourself to Mahad's spells." The Pharaoh commented as he addressed me once more, "Even the obscure ones." Despite his words and the clear understanding that I had stolen this Magician's tricks, his stance reflected only surety and enjoyment.

"I'm glad." He added belatedly, his gaze unflinching as he trapped me beneath it.

Seto Kaiba's exaggerated boredom quickly reshaped itself into a reluctant curiosity.

The grin the Pharaoh had aimed at Seto Kaiba remained in place, though became darker in nature as it was aimed toward me. "As his Pharaoh I've often wondered if Mahad obliges me by holding himself back in our duels."

Seto Kaiba's expression became attentive once more with each new word the Pharaoh spoke.

"Now I'll have my answer." The Pharaoh concluded, tilting his chin upward in challenge as he beckoned me to do my worst. "Pit his magic against mine and attack with everything he has!"

A smirk of approval cut across the lips of the taller boy standing behind him.

As though by sense alone the Pharaoh reacted to it; adjusting his stance to stand ever more erect and puffing out his chest despite the fact he had no way of having seen Seto Kaiba's appreciative leer. The rapt expression lasted for only a moment before the paler boy schooled it instead back into a boredom that was clearly false.

The Pharaoh leaned back, one hand placed upon his hip as he pushed them forward into a pose both arrogant and self-assured. His confidence told me without words that he had conviction his spellcraft would triumph, and from the back of my mind Mahad echoed this. Though well matched at the prime of his power the long days of flying without nourishment or rest had left my host's body far from the pinnacle of its abilities and unlike Teleia I was not so foolish as to ignore that fact. Even if they battled me one by one, defeating the Pharaoh and then Seto Kaiba as well was impossible for now. As it was I would need an enhancement simply to avoid being captured.

"Magic Formula." I beckoned, a brown leather grimoire bound by lock and key appearing in the air before me.

"Magic Jammer!" The Pharaoh eagerly parried, tensing the muscles of his legs and flexing his arms outwards as he rebuffed my cast in an overly athletic manner that urged the muscles of his arms to rise up against his skin. His attention flickered to the side and he tilted his head subtly to check if Seto Kaiba was still watching. The target of his ostentatious display only narrowed his eyes at the fugitive glance, but the light in his cold blue gaze danced in enthusiasm.

The thought of being the potential victim of their attacks while they performed for each other in this strange futuristic courtship ritual entertained my host – enough so that I could feel his muted amusement as Magic Jammer conjured ring of magical runes encircling the Magic Formula, turning it a blazing red as columns of thick purple smoke erupted from its cover. I cursed him and his derisive spectation as the tome disintegrated into ash before my eyes.

"Great. You can counter each other." Seto Kaiba droned sarcastically. He uncrossed his arms and his stare slid from me to the Pharaoh. "Are you gonna get serious now?" He questioned tonelessly.

Without even a backward glance the Pharaoh grinned, with a soft "Aha." of amusement as his reply. "Am I boring you, Kaiba?" The Pharaoh added, tossing the question over his shoulder with a familiar tone it took me a moment to place; veiled flirtatiousness. "Tag in at any time." The Pharaoh by no means inferred it as shamelessly as Teleia, but the suggestive undercurrent was the same in essence.

Whether Seto Kaiba was immune or oblivious to the coy taunt was unknown to me, but his answer was guileless and blunt. "Your fun little magic show is wasting our cards."

"Ha." The Pharaoh laughed at the tart reply and I sought to use his momentary distraction to my advantage.

I raised my hand into the air and lifted a finger, channeling my host's magic into the point. Though I was unprepared to face them both at once perhaps one of my host's more complex spells could even the odds. It would require the bulk of my remaining energy, but I could not allow myself to be caught.

I cast Illusion Magic.

From the point of my finger two illusions split from my body, ethereal and transparent for just a moment before their forms solidified to resemble my perfect duplicates. Wasting no time my Illusions took point at my side, the three of us moving in perfect synchronization.

"Dark Magic Attack" we announced in concert, an orb of thunderous black energy collecting at the end of each of our rods as we leveled all three of them at Seto Kaiba and the Pharaoh both. Formidable foes as they may be, a triple blast from such an attack would not be so easily dismissed.

The Pharaoh's head twisted back around to focus on me and his eyes widened as he beheld the rapidly building charges.

I could not say if the desire to do so had been mine, or if the movement had been the manifestation of some small sliver of Mahad's will, but as my Illusions and I held out our fingers and shook them chidingly at the Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba the taller boy's feigned indifference was brutally cast aside as his shoulders tensed in anger.

"Step off. This one's mine!" He abruptly demanded, cutting in front of the Pharaoh with a look that wished me a gruesome death.

The vehemence of his manner did not bode well but the attacks could not be recalled. With a thrust of our staves the three spheres of crackling magic tore away from us and towards the pair.

There was a rapid movement of his angular elbow and a flash of his pale hand. "Magical Trick Mirror-" Seto Kaiba roared over the sound of the incoming blasts, his voice turning slightly hoarse from the effort.

A bizarre metal creation awash in mirrors and garbed in a dark cloak and pointed hat sprang forth in blue light.

"-Reflect Teleia's Mystical Refpanel!" He barked.

The odd golem hastily answered its summoner's call. Within the depths of each mirror's face the reflection of the oasis around us was switched with the image of a child-like figure levitating an orb. A globe of perfect white-blue magic appeared in the mirror monster's non-existent hands. It vacuously devoured all three Dark Magic Attacks, the thundering dark orbs vanishing into the white depths.

"Don't blink; you'll miss the best bit." Seto Kaiba jeered at me and just as surely as the Pharaoh had been performing oddly for his gratification, so did Seto Kaiba pose in a manner far from practical. He took a single step forward, the motion opening up and throwing backwards the fabric of his coat away from his body to extenuate his long limbs and pert abdominal muscles.

The Pharaoh hummed softly, closing his eyes with a countenance of lordly approval as Seto Kaiba turned to him.

"You think you're the only one with tricks up your sleeve?" He remarked, a mild reciprocation of the Pharaoh's playful tone stirring beneath his dry words.

The Pharaoh opened his eyes once more to fix Seto Kaiba with an appreciative look as two shared a foreboding smirk of mutual mirth, the tensed and posed language of their bodies matching each another in both outlandishness and exhilaration.

The Magical Trick Mirror's copy of Mystical Refpanel writhed and churned, struggling to maintain the sphere's shape before finally bursting outwards, returning all three Dark Magic Attacks toward me and my Illusions.

We contorted and thrashed in unison as our attacks were returned to us, striking us squarely in each of our chests and burning us with shocking whips of dark energy that left my limbs heavy and weak. By the nature of my spell the pain of my Illusions was mine to share in as well and my agony was threefold. I sealed my teeth, refusing to voice my pain, yet instead smelt the odor of old iron and tasted rancid meat upon my host's tongue as the necrotic filth that now made up my true body oozed free from Mahad's nose and lips. I coughed, clearing his throat so the Magician may breathe without impediment and spat out a mouthful of my own carcass.

A pair of blood colored eyes beheld the grim vomit that now stained the earth of his family's most sacred of places and slowly his countenance dropped to something stern and unflinching. "That's enough now." He told the paler boy. "We need to seize his true body and ignore the false ones."

Seto Kaiba scowled at me, his eyes flashing between me and my Illusions with studious intensity. "And that is?"

The Pharaoh simply shook his head in reply, the confidence in his voice never waning as he admitted "I don't know. Mahad's illusions are perfect."

"The one on the left is the true Mahad." The priestess announced from the sidelines as she raised up her arm, her finger pointing at me evenly. That was impossible. My host's mastery of this technique was flawless – unparalleled. There was no known method for distinguishing the true caster from his twins and yet the priestess had identified me among my Illusions so easily.

"You can tell?" The Pharaoh questioned curiously, his eyes fixating on the true me as I stood in line with my duplicates.

The priestess stared into my face.

No.

She stared into my host's face, seeing Mahad in a way that even the Magician's broad understanding of the magical arts could not explain. The priestess's hand slid to cover her heart as she inhaled deeply.

"I feel it." Was the only answer she gave.

Seto Kaiba surprised me and my host both as he quickly took her words to be true and acted on them without hesitation.

"You better be right." He sneered as he drew a new card, the sliver of strange light that made up his artificial magic gleaming in his hand. "Because I play Attack Guidance Armor!"

A breastplate of silver steal launched itself toward me from its foreign summoning stone, steadfastly ignoring the Illusions at my side to grapple its cumbersome bulk around my body. It near knocked me over as it bound itself to my host without mercy to weigh down our bones, yet struggling to stand with it was the least of my concerns.

I recovered my footing and straightened my spine once more only to find my Illusions now impassively stared not at my foes, but at me.

Mahad's reactions were slowing, but still proved fast enough to conjure a Dark Magical Circle to banish the closest of my Illusions. The rune-covered spellcraft encircled its feet to freeze it in place as the second turned on me with reckless abandon.

I dodged and parried five of its magically empowered strikes but the Illusion's blows were relentless - the magical duplicate feeling none of my injuries as each attack I repelled drained away a little more of Mahad's magical reservoir. Without needing any instruction from its Master Seto Kaiba's Kaiser Sea Horse joined the assault to divide my attention - its spear and the staff of my rebel Illusion landing strong hits to my host's body and dropping me to kneel on one knee.

The Pharaoh, Seto Kaiba, Isis, the Celtic Guardian and Kaiser Seahorse began to converge on where I had been felled, nearing to stand over me like wounded prey as I coughed up yet more necrotic slurry.

The priestess's gaze held my own as once more Seto Kaiba threw back his head like a rearing horse and roared with a second round of blusterous laughter.

"Mwhaha! I hope you're taking notes, Pharaoh." His eyes cut away from me to behold the Pharaoh as his mouth coiled into a shape both gloating and exhilarated. "Because this is what taking control of 'fate' looks like." His expression was one I recognized. It was the flaming elation of a warrior's high - stoked by a passion for victory.

Despite the jab the Pharaoh's features moved to mirror Seto Kaiba's as the paler boy's excitement seemed to feed his own.

"So I see." He wryly countered, the calmness of his face at war with the thrill in his voice.

Quicker than a snake bite the two lunged for each other's lips as though intending to devour each other. The ferocious display both began and ended in a single heart beat and with matching smirks the pressure of their focus returned to me as though their attention had never shifted. It seemed through battle their relations were destined to mature quickly.

"Andro Sphinx, I assume." With the march of a conqueror the Pharaoh strode passed the Illusion I had banished, pulling the Magician's Rod free of its paralyzed grip as he did so to hold threateningly over my head. "You're outmatched."

Seto Kaiba stood attentively at his back, now leering at me as though he were the Pharaoh's enforcer as he flashed a view of the card Soul Demolition in front of my eyes. Mahad knew it, and so too did I. That would indeed eradicate me from this merciless existence, but my duty was not done yet.

"Submit to us, or be destroyed." The Pharaoh decreed, his eyes searing me with the promise of his words.

Against my better judgment I closed my eyes to the imposing sight of my would be captors and smirked at them, the expression hollow of feeling. Teleia for all her foolishness had lured them here, to this place, for a reason. She'd had a plan in mind, though it had been quickly waylaid by her own impetuousness as she became too enamored with the idea of molesting Seto Kaiba to implement it.

The time was now.

In my stolen voice I announced the spell that would herald my escape.

**Atem**

"Call of the Haunted." The imposter within Mahad's body announced.

I'd dueled the most maniacal of opponents at the very height of their madness, but such malevolence was absent from Andro Sphinx's borrowed voice. He called forth his spell without emotion and calmly allowed it to envelop him.

A thick purple mist spilled from his trap card to fill my Mother's oasis with a blanket of heavy fog. This technique didn't belong to Mahad, but was a creation of the sem priest who had come to call himself Anubis. The necrotic aura was a testament to its creator's perverse magical experiments. It lingered as an unnatural chill in the air of my afterlife, the sudden drop in temperature peppering the skin on my arms with goose flesh and drawing strangled coughs from Kaiba and myself as the cold attacked our mouths and lungs. The lips that our adrenaline-fueled kiss had set alight in a flush of passion quickly lost all memory of that warmth as I gritted my teeth against the spell's icy embrace.

Out of the depths of the haze rose up the shadows of men, women and children, each lumbering with the steady gait of the risen dead.

The ghosts surrounded us on every side, undulating and shifting, licked by the frigid wind like smoke but always returning to their gaunt and gnarled human shapes. These were not the immaculately prepared dead of my people's funerary customs. Instead they wore dented armor, blunted weapons and frayed bandages. They were hardly much of a threat. Most were bandaged so tightly they could barely shift their limbs. Each had difficulty seeing us through blind eyes and struggled to move with their thick wrappings and taut, dry skin working against them.

I backed away and beside me Kaiba followed as the army of spirits slowly swarmed around us, blocking the sight of Mahad's kneeling body from our eyes.

"Now what?" Kaiba leapt back from one, his long legs propelling him away easily as the toneless and colorless wraith of an elderly man near mummified in bandages and rough linen scraps lazily swung a clawed hand toward him.

"Keep your distance and they'll be unable to perceive you." I noted.

Despite his propensity for having his soul stolen I had confidence in Kaiba's ability to defend himself from physical aggressors. I glanced passed him to Isis. With her arms tightly wrapped around her body for warmth my priestess merely watched the ghostly figures shamble and groan from beside my Celtic Guardian with her paling lips pressed shut in concern.

"These are the ghosts of the past, called forth by the spell to relive their trauma." She explained to Kaiba as he directed his Kaiser Sea Horse to cut down a ghoul, only to watch through narrowed eyes as the disembodied fog limbs knitted themselves back together in the aftermath.

"Great." Kaiba deadpanned. "Another card that doesn't work the way it's meant to."

With a flick of his wrist he set a card down, bending his knees, leaning forward slightly and exhaling sharply as Burst Breath produced a torrent of orange flame from the depths of his throat. His coat tails thrashed behind him as the blaze incinerated the phantoms that crowded our view of Mahad's body, blowing them away from the site of our downed opponent in a long blast of fire and heat befitting a master of dragons. I leaned into it as I pulled what remained of my cape over my quickly cooling skin.

The charred earth smouldered as Kaiba's Breath ended, leaving behind only scorched earth and the half-melted empty shell of his Attack Guidance Armour to lie broken in the sand. Any embers or ashes that remained were quickly smothered by the mist's oppressive cold.

"Andro Sphinx has escaped." I observed.

He had commanded Mahad's abilities with competence. He must have known that my Magician had better spells that were much less costly to cast and would have made an easier distraction.

"Tch!" Kaiba, his Kaiser Sea Horse and I backed away in unison to regroup with Isis and the Celtic Guardian as the phantasms vaporized by the inferno began to reform in front of us, their bodies coalescing once more in thin wisps of freezing smoke. We stepped away from the tide of phantoms, leaving the range of their senses as they moved with purpose to each assume positions only they knew of as though each one of them were an actor readying a performance.

All around us they divided, the spirits peeling apart into two opposing factions, both equally devoted to reliving their shared past. One, a side singularly composed of men dressed in simple kilts but wearing the skull caps of the palace guard and equipped with tall spears or bows cornered and trapped the second, an assortment of barefooted villagers in bandages and worn robes.

Lead by a Hand of the Pharaoh the royal guard cut through the cowering crowd with a gory efficiency, dispatching anything that came within their range. The Hand glanced out across the scene with a grim expression, a red glazed amulet of Sekhmet that he wore around his neck identifying him as the most elite of my warriors. It swung against his chest as he turned back to the rest of the guards. "Dispatch them cleanly and gather the bodies together. Do not allow them to touch your skin." He ordered, shouting to make himself heard over the cacophony. "None must escape, lest the sickness spread."

Kaiba was stone faced by my side. The only indication of his emotions was the vice like pressure of his jaw and the way his words were hissed through clenched teeth. "What is this?"

"A mistake." Was the only answer I could give, but Kaiba's sharp look told me that it wasn't enough. I could understand his silent demand for a better explanation as the spirits of the villagers scattered and screamed around us.

I carefully chose my next words. "I told you that this oasis was named for my Mother?" Kaiba grunted in acknowledgement so I continued. "That was not the extent of her involvement with this place." I paused as the words became elusive and began to sound like excuses even before I'd had a chance to speak them out loud. "In her great affection for this place, it was her wish that upon her death this would be where she was laid to rest."

The sem priests and tomb builders had balked at the unorthodox location but my Father had insisted and the Pharaoh was never denied.

The oasis was untouched, beautiful, and the secrecy surrounding its location would keep out tomb robbers and thieves. It'd been a great comfort to me as a boy - a place where I could still feel my Mother's presence and tenderness even after she was laid to rest in the tomb secretly carved into the sprawl of the canyon caves. At that age it'd been sometimes difficult for me to remember that she was safe and untroubled in the afterlife with the Gods. Even knowing that was little comfort on stormy nights when lightning or sandstorms kept me awake and I couldn't crawl into her bed for comfort, breathe in the lingering scent of temple incense in her hair or hear her voice delicately whisper to me as the palace slept on unaware. I'd missed her desperately after she'd departed, but every time my Father and I visited this place after her passing it felt as though our three souls had been temporarily reunited here.

It'd been a perfect choice for her royal tomb, to honor her and preserve everything she'd loved.

"However, the oasis's location didn't remain a secret for long."

I struggled with how to phrase the rest.

The Gods had been merciful to remake this place in my afterlife in its original flawless condition, before my men swept over it. Recalling what had happened felt like a hand had reached through linen, flesh and bone straight into my chest to squeeze my heart in its grip.

"They are lepers." Isis noted, speaking in the lull as I contemplated how to admit to my failing of character to Kaiba. He was hardly immune to them himself, but after what we'd begun to share I wanted him to see me at my best. This was far from it.

"Yes." After a pause I could do little more than nod at Isis's keen observation.

How they'd found it I still didn't know, but the oasis's natural resources had attracted droves of the afflicted as the outer villages in my kingdom became the prey of an outbreak of the disease. I had a inherited a more modern understanding of the malady from my time in Yugi's world, but during my reign it was believed to be a punishment from the Gods themselves. In an effort to please them the homes of the sick were often razed to the ground by their terrified countrymen and neighboring villages. The canyon here was the only natural shelter within three day's walk from where those villages once stood. Its high cliff-face provided shade in the valley below during the day while the caverns and caves provided shelter at night.

"I feared the illness they carried would corrupt my Mother's resting place, so I took action."

A foolish action.

"The palace guard went through the encampment, putting everyone they found to the sword and burning their remains." I admitted as the cold urged my limbs to start to shiver and shake against my wishes. Back then I'd thought it was necessary to secure my Mother's peace. If I'd never met Yugi and experienced the temperance of his gentle heart perhaps I still would. That realization sat heavily in the pit of my stomach.

"I knew nothing of this." Isis murmured as she thoughtlessly rubbed her hands together for warmth. It could easily have been an accusation, but it wasn't. My priestesses words were mournful and consoling in understanding.

Few did. It wasn't a story I'd wanted to retell.

My warriors had been more devastating than any plague and the blood I'd inadvertently spilled by their hands had poisoned the oasis more effectively than the ailing men and women who'd sheltered here. I had ordered my men to dispose of the diseased bodies and for the sem priest who became Anubis to re-sanctify the oasis grounds, but that instruction had gone ignored. By the time the day was done the canyon was a smoking wound in the ground, smouldering for nights on end as a mere scar of murky water and human remains. The truth behind what happened had remained a mystery. None of the guards I'd left to carry out my wishes had ever returned to the palace; I'd suspected to avoid facing punishment for defying my command.

Close to us an ethereal unit of Egyptian soldiers lead by the Hand of the Pharaoh rounded on a group of half-starved women and children as they cowered against the canyon wall. In a courageous display the lingering spiritual imprint of one older boy darted to stand in front of the others. He spread his discolored arms and fingers out to create a barrier between them and my men, standing firm even as the soldiers drew back their spears ready to strike him down.

From my side Kaiba bent slightly to collect something from the canyon floor and threw a rock, hard enough to concuss knowing his effortless strength. It sailed right through the head of the lead soldier as his spear arm recoiled.

"What?" Kaiba barked, stepping forward to directly intervene even as I placed my hand on his arm to hold him back.

"There's nothing you can do." I suspected it was the boy that had riled Kaiba. He looked to be about Mokuba's age when last I'd seen the younger of the two Kaiba brothers, though it was difficult to tell with a face so thin.

In one strong lunge the spear of the Hand of the Pharaoh struck true. A plume of spectral blood erupted from the boy's small body as the weapon skewered him through the abdomen and lifted him up into the air. Without care his ghost-like corpse was slammed back down onto the ground and a heavy foot applied to his chest so the Hand could leverage his spear free of the boy's stomach. With a trio of short yanks and a sickly noise the weapon came loose from the child's body as the other soldier pursued the rest – each of the trapped villagers screaming and crying while the smaller of the children darting off left and right in terror.

An arrow flew passed us, pining one of the fleeing children through the leg and dropping her to the ground. In a whirl of his coat Kaiba turned on his heel to glare at the archer who had fired it.

The lingering shadow of a second me rode through the canyon confidently astride a fit white mare. She tossed her mane and snorted in aggravation as a spray of blood marred the pristine coat of her hind-quarters as I passed an unfortunate who came near enough to warrant a swift beheading at the hands of my personal guard. Behind my ghostly double a platoon of archers marched attentively, plucking their reed arrows from their quivers to fell any threats to me as my counterpart urged the mare onward.

Bringing up the rear behind my archers on two less remarkable beasts were two men riding side by side. One I recognized to be the priest who would soon after the events of this day come to call himself 'Anubis'. The second was a man who was otherwise oddly absent from my afterlife, despite beckoning me toward the gateway between the world of the living and that of the dead after Yugi defeated me in our ceremonial duel.

"Aknadin?" Isis gasped.

Kaiba scowled at the unfamiliar name. There was no remembrance in his eyes as he warily watched the one-eyed rider, most likely recognizing the Millennium Eye and the threat it represented but nothing else.

"My Father's younger twin brother and Guardian of the Millennium Eye." I added in explanation, for Kaiba's sake.

"Oof. That's your uncle?" He jeered, looking over Aknadin with a critical eye as if he were a poorly rendered hologram before turning back to me. "So you're a genetic anomaly even in your own family." He concluded with a scoff. I didn't bother to respond to his taunt. In my time unusual features were believed to be a sign of a child's heightened magical potential and seen as a blessing. Not only that but Kaiba's attempt at his usual sardonic humor had been addled by clipped words. I suspected the barb was in an effort to appear unaffected by the shrieking of panicked children echoing all around us.

The shifting recreation of Aknadin sat straight-backed in the saddle of his horse and spoke in a hushed mutter to Anubis.

"Why must the Pharaoh be here?" Aknadin's question to the neatly kept Anubis was dry as desert sands and conspiratorially quiet. With a single eye he looked out over the villagers as they tried to flee and hide. "Culling lepers is beneath the station of the Pharaoh of Egypt"

I recalled Aknadin to have been strict, indifferent, kindly at times and stalwartly aloof at others, but despite his many flaws had been both a firm and fair mentor to my High Priest and had cared greatly for my Father. Learning from this vision that he had conspired with Anubis so early in my rule stung like a fresh cut.

Anubis's reply was a deep chuckle. "It is not enough for them to merely die. If it were so easy as that we would have no need to flush these cattle into this place for slaughter."

In a low growl he continued, ignoring Aknadin obvious distaste. "They must suffer. They must look upon the face of their Pharaoh and feel only hate. That is how we will create souls worthy of forming the Pyramid of Light."

Aknadin broke from their muted conversation to catch the attention of an archer and pointed toward a hooded woman as she sprinted towards the small girl with the arrow through her calf.

"There, another!" He commanded.

The archer missed as the woman abruptly changed course, darting over to the injured girl and pulling the arrow out of the floor, but he didn't relent. With the dutiful focus that all of my loyal palace guards shared he knocked another arrow, this time striking the child in the back of her neck. Her head lolled backward as her spine was broken from the impact.

The woman spun around on her heel to snarl at them like an animal. Her hood fell backward to free a long shock of hair and a voracious rage swam in her eyes.

Lesions marred her skin and her eyebrows were missing, but despite the yawning eye sockets, emaciated cheeks and thin spindly limbs I looked into the human face of Sphinx Teleia. Much like Mahad and the Dark Magician her ka manifestation had strange coloring compared to her mortal body, but it was her without doubt.

"Mwhaha." Anubis delighted in the bloodshed, despite still wearing the rank and clothing of a priest. "Do not dare to betray me, Aknadin." He continued, "I did not waste my time setting this in motion at the very threshold of the Queen's tomb only to have your pathetic conscience undo my hard work."

Aknadin chose to remain silent and didn't reply to the fallen sem priest's implied threat.

The woman who was Sphinx Teleia yelled hysterically with a commoner's accent native to my kingdom's most distant villages as Anubis laughed down at her. With an expression pinched by rage she threw a vial of something at him that smashed over his robe to coat it in filth.

"Impudent wench! Bind that one and bring her to me." Anubis called down to a guard who grabbed her as she writhed and spat at him.

At the head of the procession my wispy double pulled his horse to a stop, letting the archers and Anubis pass before realigning his mount with Aknadin's so that they could talk. I imagined Kaiba was lip reading the conversation based on how intently he stared at my echo's mouth, but I could recall the conversation as if it had happened yesterday. Overhearing what Anubis and my uncle had just been discussing threw it into a new and malicious context.

My specter's face was tight with grief and anger and flames of wrath burned in my eyes as I absently watched Teleia be bound at the wrists with thick rope and pulled to Anubis's side. She snapped and bit at everything that came close to her and my past self frowned at the display, though obviously I hadn't cared enough to commit Teleia's features to memory. "I know these villagers cannot be permitted to defile the grounds of my Mother's tomb, or spread the God's sickness-" I began, speaking to Aknadin stiffly, "But isn't there a better way?". My phantom glanced over the devastation. "This doesn't feel right, Uncle." I added in a low voice, softening my tone and using a manner of address that otherwise was reserved for only more intimate family moments.

My uncle cast his single eye over my face. His aloofness faltered for a second but the expression behind it was revealed and hidden again so quickly I didn't have time to decipher it. "It is a mercy. These unfortunates are not long for this world." Aknadin eventually counseled back and it was impossible to read his true thoughts or feelings from his tone."

"What of those that don't bare any signs of sickness?" I pressed, frowning at my uncle. Some of the younger children had seemed unaffected.

"Even the few unaffiliated ones are too weak from wandering the desert sands without water or food. They will not survive the journey to another place of respite. It is better for them to expire with the rest of their kin." Aknadin's reply was brisk and to the point, so grimly confident that his assessment seemingly left no room to be doubted. "It is the will of the Gods." My uncle concluded. I didn't doubt Aknadin's words, yet sick or not I was still these people's Pharaoh and I wouldn't allow them to be dismissed so easily.

"Then leave them here. Once the guards have removed the remains of the diseased this place can be a sanctuary for them." I countered as my expression tightened.

"My Pharaoh." Anubis interjected from the side lines as he wrangled the woman now leashed to him. His bow was respectful but I could see in retrospect the deep contempt for me lurking behind his dark eyes. "Their very presence here desecrates the sanctity of the Queen's resting place. Should they shelter here the Gods may become dissatisfied with your royal mother in the afterlife."

My phantom glanced down to his hand and flexed his fingers.

I recalled this moment very well, remembering the feeling of my mother's hand in mine as she passed so peacefully, knowing that the Gods would embrace her and make her healthy again in the next life since she'd been a kind and devoted woman.

I considered Anubis's words carefully, my doubles eyes flicking around the canyon as he took in the chaos.

The towering long-haired priest was among the most talented of the palace sem priests and I had brought him along at my uncle's suggestion to consult on the integrity of my Mother's tomb. At the time I'd thought deferring to the opinion of someone better informed in securing passage to the afterlife was the action of a wise Pharaoh willing to heed the advice of others, something that would make my late Father proud. Now I saw I'd been deceived. Seeing the evidence laid out before me it was obvious now that corralling these unfortunate villagers into the Jewel was likely the work of Anubis or Aknadin dressed to appear as an accidental coincidence.

I clenched my hands into a fists, feeling my nails prick the inside of palms as my fingers coiled tighter and tighter.

How dare they! I shivered in righteous indignation and from the coolness of my body.

At the time I'd believed myself to be doing the work of the Gods to protect my Mother's remains from corruption - I'd thought learning of the villagers intrusion and arriving in time to end it before any damage came to her tomb had been the work of fate! Watching this now from a new vantage point I could see both of those assumptions had been wrong.

Anubis wrenched on the reign connecting him to Teleia as she tried to cut through the ropes with her yellowed teeth and turned back to me after subduing his captive. "What do you believe to be warranted to ensure your Mother's peace in the next life? It is your choice to make, my Pharaoh." He was baiting me - that was obvious now. A cruel eagerness flashed through his eyes as he waited for my verdict.

"Mercy! Please, Pharaoh! Permit us mercy!" Teleia squawked, barely able to breathe as she strained against her tether.

I frowned, answering the feral villager though I had no reason to. "My permission is irrelevant." It was only the Gods permission that mattered.

To be Pharaoh was my divine destiny. It was a gift and an obligation. I enjoyed the pleasures of my birthright and so I was fated to carry the weight of its duties too, and they were many. They tied me to my people, to my family and to the Gods themselves. The scales had to be balanced, but measuring one of the three against the other two wasn't as simple as my Father had made it look during his reign. I'd wanted to be the sort of ruler that he'd been; a peacemaker, compassionate and calm. But even my Father had been unafraid to punish anyone who threatened our family, and that was what I'd judged this to be: a threat to my Mother's very afterlife.

I hesitated in passing judgement before finally reaching my verdict, one that would leave me lying awake in my bed the nights the followed unable to sleep because of it. "Give them quick deaths and consecrate their remains." My haunt decided.

"Of course, my Pharaoh." Anubis's agreed, bowing once more in a bare-faced mockery of true loyalty.

"Noooo!" Teleia shrieked and screamed beside us, thrashing on her leash until her throat was sliced open. Her body fell to the dusty floor in a slack-jawed silent scream. The cut wasn't deep enough to kill her and she watched us through panicked eyes trying desperately to hold the wound shut with her hands around her neck as she bled out.

My phantom lingered near her as the blood slipped out between her fingers in red rivulets to cascade down her hands and around her knuckles. I didn't recall this part of that day at all. Perhaps I'd chosen not to. The idea of willingly discarding a memory, any memory, seemed foolish now after thousands of years spent without any at all.

"Come, Pharaoh. Leave the soldiers to their work." Aknadin suggested, drawing his horse closer to mine to pull my attention away from the woman as she spluttered. With a swallow and a nod my ghost and the specter of my uncle took their leave to ride off further down the canyon and out towards the desert wastes, parading in front of countless suffering villagers as we did so.

"You idiots really think the living are worth less than the dead?"

Kaiba's semi-sarcastic question from my side caught me off guard.

I'd almost forgotten that I was here with an audience and not watching this alone, in private. Reliving all of this felt so intimate, even through the illusion of spellcraft.

"It's not that simple, Kaiba." I replied as evenly as I could, trying to stop my teeth from chattering as the frigid haze seemed to will itself through my clothing. I noted with a glance to his face that though Kaiba was a shade paler than usual and he had crossed his arms tightly across his chest he seemed largely unaffected by the cold and the visions. There was none of the disapproval that my actions deserved on his face. Instead his piercing blue eyes watched me carefully, intensely, like he was trying to see something inside the very depths of my soul.

From my side Isis inclined her head.

"Entry into the afterlife is not given freely, nor guaranteed regardless of wealth or station." Her voice was wet pressed silk over a sunburn, giving me the time I needed to recompose my thoughts as she spoke softly but at length. "Many priests devote their entire lives to pleasing the Gods so as to secure their place in the next life." My priestess glanced to me sympathetically, knowing better than Kaiba the intricacies of our Gods and that the day the haunts had recreated had come so soon after the death of my Father. It wasn't an excuse, but I felt the shameful temptation to cling to it and make it one. "It is a place of never ending youth, health and happiness, yet even once earned it is a placement that the Gods may rescind at any time, as they see fit, should the deceased person grow to displease them." Isis's deep eyes swept over the sea of bodies slowly and sorrowfully, carefully challenging Kaiba's growing scowl with a question I hoped he understood was hypothetical. "What value have the wills and pleasures of those who's lives are but the fast-burning wicks of short candles, compared to the eternal flame of one who has already earned their place in the afterlife? Very little, to most." She concluded.

"You're not subtle." Kaiba countered, aiming all of his ire at Isis.

She replied serenely, "Subtly was never my intention."

"Yeah, well do me a favor-"

"I am already trying to."

"-Next time you feel like throwing some long-winded metaphor at me as a cautionary tale, keep it to yourself. I'm not interested in anything you have to say." Kaiba sneered over her, leering at my priestess as if she'd offended him.

"Very well." Isis agreed neutrally. She endured Kaiba's rage better than I would of in this moment and I nodded to her in thanks for her service. Briefly I thought I'd been spared dealing with his quick temper, but just as I got comfortable with that idea Kaiba rounded on me.

"Do you believe that bull as well?" His tone was sharp and there was a note in it of something I didn't recognize. I kept his gaze for a long moment, trying to gauge his mood before answering as truthfully as I could.

"I do." I confirmed.

Or I did. While I was alive I most certainly had and now I was myself again - by that merit I should do so once more, but that would ignore everything that I'd learned from my time as Yugi's partner and the rest of our friends. If I had to weight my afterlife against saving their lives I'd make that sacrifice for them, exactly as I'd done when I risked appearing to them in the living world to thwart Diva. I'd had no guarantee that the Gods would smile on my choice to help as I intervened to save them, but the lives of Joey and Yugi had been worth that gamble.

I caught that thought and turned it over to examine it. It was by omission an acknowledgement that I valued their lives over the God's themselves. That realization was uncomfortable.

"Life's the middle of a duel - anything can happen" Kaiba glared at me pointedly. "Death's the end. It doesn't matter if you won or lost because you don't get to play again."

"An interesting notion from the reincarnation of a High Priest." Isis calmly defended.

She was right but I could scarcely imagine a statement more perfectly formed or timed to push Kaiba's anger to what I suspected was near its breaking point.

"Tch!"

He turned on his heel to show me his back and I could see from the shadows of his shoulder blades that his shoulders were tensed. As heavily clothed as he was I doubted it was because of the freezing fog. "Don't ever tell me this clown kingdom is better than the real deal." He threatened and began to stride off.

"Where are you going?" I called out. His long legs covered ground quickly when motivated and he put distance between us at the speed that meant he was currently very motivated.

Isis and I watched as his Kaiser Sea Horse quickly leapt to Kaiba's side and he stormed away from us with an irritated flick of his coat.

"To play the game." He hissed back over his shoulder without stopping or turning back.

* * *

**AN, June 14th:** The Atem section of the this chapter didn't sit right with me after a few days of publishing it so I've gone back and changed some of the finer details. The basic events play out the same way but I've shifted the villagers/refugees to being lepers instead to make the Pharaoh's actions feel more reasonable. I'm still not completely happy with it so I'll continue to massage chapters 25 & 26 retroactively to improve them. Let me know what you think!


	26. Chapter 26

**Isis**

The Pharaoh exhaled sharply in obvious irritation, his breath expelling as a curious puff of mist in the unnaturally chilled air.

Despite the pressing cold I warmed as I beheld his distracted expression. Our young king was rarely anything but confident and regal, yet in this moment his focus was torn like that of any other of his age. The development also seemed to keep his mind from the unkind shadows of the past that lingered around us to taunt his noble conscience. Instead of staring forlorn at the echos of a mistake made long ago the Pharaoh's eyes now darted from Seto Kaiba's back to my own face as he swayed between two conflicting desires as surely as the Puzzle swung pendulously around his neck. This I understood to be a result of his budding relationship with Seto Kaiba. I had come to learn full well that being pulled between such compelling extremes was a challenge of early affections that seemed able to catch even the grandest of us like a sparrow in a sandstorm.

I could imagine what he debated, for given their new closeness there were only two sensible options. On the one one hand I believed he wanted to follow Seto Kaiba, but on the other knew it was a better idea to give him space. Our ways were not his ways and any friction would only become worse if the Pharaoh pressed him now.

I had been cautious of the Other Seto and my instincts knew his presence here to hold the potential to yet make a powerful upset in the Pharaoh's afterlife, but despite his coarse personality he was not the threat I had first thought him to be. He was arrogant, thankless and disrespectful of both the Pharaoh and our culture but even so causing him to depart in a brooding sulk was not what I had intended, especially as he was the one best dressed to endure battle in the grip of this spell's icy embrace.

My Pharaoh's face reflected my reluctance to see him strike out on his own.

The Kaiser Sea Horse was slicing in two any of the lingering spirits that came too close to Seto Kaiba as he marched through them with determination, but with a toss of the wind his white garb vanished from our view behind a blanket of the hazy specters.

The Pharaoh opened his mouth, perhaps to call out to him, just as I inadvertently cut the thread of his thoughts with a gentle utterance of "I am sorry, my Pharaoh. This was not my intention."

I had over stepped my bounds.

The Pharaoh's attention finally settled on me and he returned my apologetic smile with one of his own, though it was fleeting and forced. His earnings buffeted against the young Pharaoh's jaw as he shook his elegant head to dismiss my apology.

"You're not to blame." The Pharaoh reassured me, using a softer tone that he often took with Mana. "Kaiba is not predisposed to being outdone, even in trading witticisms." The statement was an irritated one, yet somehow also brimmed with veiled respect.

"He resembles the High Priest so keenly." I noted. Keenly enough that I forgotten to temper my words. "I should have known better than to press him as Mahad and I would have done with Seto."

"It's alright, Isis." The Pharaoh replied, the formality of his words laxer than it would normally have been, yet greater than when he spoke to Seto Kaiba from what I had observed. "In form and basic nature the two are very similar; much more so than Yugi and I." My Pharaoh frowned and softly confided in me that "Yugi would never have condemned these people to their graves – no matter what. He'd have found another way."

I had heard the Pharaoh's tales of this Yugi. He sounded like a kind-hearted and enlightened boy by the Pharaoh's account. A truly pure soul. That was a heavy weight to be measured against. Indeed, life was a much more difficult prospect when one's total worth was evaluated in comparison to others. It was a thought Mahad would have known how to shape and present to the Pharaoh, but I lacked his way with such words. I missed his insight into such things, along with everything else about the Magician.

Despite the Pharaoh's acceptance of my apology I still regretted it nevertheless, particularly as I had managed to offend someone the Pharaoh was coming to develop affections for.

"I shall be more mindful in future." I assured my king.

I only prayed Seto Kaiba did not come to harm while now alone. If he did my words would become a most costly mistake...

Upon awakening in the Pharaoh's afterlife the Pharaoh had soon realized that none of us recalled the events that came after his sealing within the Millennium Puzzle. Only Mahad had dreams and glimpses of foreign battlefields in other, much stranger times and places, but they were fleeting and disjointed. I believed them to be merely echoing visions from the part of him that remained bound with the tablet of the Dark Magician.

The Pharaoh had thought the missing memories of our futures to be a sign to continue our lives where we had left them during his reign, unburdened and without the weight of knowing our fates, yet it was the recollection of what had happened immediately before the Pharaoh's sacrifice that haunted me. Even though in this place we were finally reunited once more, knowing that Mahad had been slain and his Ka sealed, and that after the Pharaoh's passing I had continued to live a life absent of him was a difficult charge to accept. Our courtship had been so tentative and new back then. To think of it being stuck down just as it had begun to grow was grievous.

I did not wish that fate upon the Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba, no matter how inappropriate of a match the Other Seto appeared to be.

"Think nothing of it." The Pharaoh commanded. He did not seem surprised that I had run aground on Seto Kaiba's rocky temper by treating him as I did the High Priest. "Their zeal and casual ruthlessness are the same but oddly it is Seto who is the more level-headed of the two." A slight smirk crossed the Pharaoh's face. His lips were beginning to take on a slightly blueish tint. I could not imagine being subjected to such cold while still convalescing would do him good, but for the moment he remained animated, if only by the pleasure he seemed to garner from speaking about the other boy. "Kaiba's modern education has made him more brilliant, but he's more temperamental because of it." The Pharaoh summarized for me.

'Temperamental' indeed.

I inclined my head in understanding. My fingers felt numb and unresponsive as I pulled my garb to cover the large area of my neck and shoulders exposed by the damage done to my robe. I hoped to repel the chill of Call of the Haunted, but it felt as if it had settled straight into my bones. I feared the Pharaoh fared little better as he shifted what remained of his cloak to better cover his exposed skin.

"What of the Other Seto. Shall we follow him?" I questioned, gently.

The Pharaoh's eyebrows rose a fraction at the name, the corner of his mouth turning upwards slightly in a half-conscious smirk before returning to the frustrated expression he had worn as his companion stalked off. "I won't humor Kaiba by rushing to his side to keep pace with him." His expression became stern and stalwart. "But, he's right." The Pharaoh added belatedly, "We need to find a way to end the effects of this spell."

I inclined my head in agreement as he took a step in the direction Seto Kaiba had departed. The phantom corpses salting the ground chilled my heels and ankles as we moved passed them, their closeness bringing a frigid rush of cold sensation as the Pharaoh, his Celtic Guardian and I began to weave around the remaining spirits.

The screams and cries in the distance were growing fainter and less frequent. It appeared the guards were close to finishing the ghostly Pharaoh's unfortunate order.

I side-stepped the senses of one of the haunted men as the fog-soldiers marched around us. They had begun gathering the bodies of the fallen together into heaps as we picked our way through, following in the hoof prints of the other Pharaoh's horse. The path brought us closer to Anubis's spellbound echo than I would of preferred. A blast of freezing wind settled around him like an ambient aura, causing the Pharaoh to shiver violently at my side. As the Pharaoh's spectral projection departed his view with Aknadin far in the distance, Anubis's false pretense of love and loyalty was quickly discarded. His dutiful expression twisted into only evil.

Like an over-large vulture he moved from dying villager to dying villager, chanting the incantations needed to summon forth their Ka. From the body of a barely breathing child he coaxed out a creature that was green, slimy and limbless. "Weak." He assessed and cast the monster aside with a cruel swipe of his hand, ending the child's life.

"Pathetic." Anubis commented again as he lured out something skeletal and rodent-like from one man with arrows in his back, and a large faceless worm from another. "I seek souls worthy of the Pyramid of Light, yet I see only maggots and rats!" He raged to the canyon walls, his shout bouncing around us in an echo of pure anger.

"K..ll...y...this..."

A hoarse whisper drew his gaze back down to the earth.

Curiosity and maliciousness shone in his eyes as he knelt beside the fading body of the woman whose neck he had all but slit, pulling her head up to his ear with a rough yank of her ample hair.

"What was that, wretch? You'll need to speak louder."

"I'll -" Her words were so quiet and disjointed in her last few moments of life "Kill...you... f...this."

Anubis roared with a vicious mocking laughter.

"Mwhahahaha Kill me?" He taunted, sinister mirth gleaming dagger-like in his eyes. "I am but a simple priest, following the directions of the Pharaoh. That is who you should be whispering your threats to." The reasoning was hardly flawless, but that mattered little to those on the cusp of life and death. The final words spoken to and from a departed body held a mysterious magic that could cloud even the most well-adjusted of minds. With a firm hand Anubis jerked her head curtly and whispered into her ear.

"Do you wish to live?"

"Y..s..." the woman desperately struggled to cling to life, as all who died that day appeared to. Life was such a precious thing, after all.

"Then prove your worth!" Anubis barked, and pulled out her Ka.

The woman's body arched as best it could and she silently gasped. "W'rrrrraaaaaaaroooooow!" A soft pelt of sandy fur, slashing claws and beating wings screamed into being as from her body emerged the Ka of a pale Sphinx. It prowled hungrily, shapely and powerful in comparison to the others.

"Your hatred gives you strength." He complimented the Sphinx as he lowered the woman's human body back to the earth. With a stifled moan the woman expired in his grip, sagging limply and Anubis's expression quickly resolved into anger – the savage irritation of being denied an amusement. He chuffed like a beast, casting his hand over the woman and the wound on her neck held shut by the weakening strength of her own grip.

Anubis chuckled maliciously, "You shall be the first." He sealed her head back onto her neck with a burst of black bubbling necrotic magic that stank of corpses and rot. "I command you to live again!"

As life returned to the woman she blinked, once, then twice, staring up into the face of Anubis as he loomed above her body, offering her his palm.

She gazed at her would be savior in the same wonderment and adoration a child might when receiving a large and much desired gift. In doing so the woman revealed only how little she truly knew of the terrible nature of necromancy. Once returned from the grave the servant was powerless to defy the will of the sorcerer who had raised them. The dark art made slaves of all it touched. That was why it was so wisely outlawed by the previous Pharaoh.

Clearly despite his rank in the priesthood the man who would come to name himself Anubis already had begun to dabble with such grim sorcery. He did so carelessly, without the barest of glances to ensure the Pharaoh's soldiers did not take notice. I could fathom no benevolent reason for his candor.

"Rise up. Become my acolyte and by my hand we shall destroy the Pharaoh!" He demanded of the woman.

I did not know which, but either the compulsion of Anubis's magic or her own lust for vengeance spirited the rawboned woman shakily to her feet.

Loudly, something clattered against the chasm rocks as it fell to the ground.

The eyes of Anubis and the newly raised woman, along with the Pharaoh's and my own cut across the bloody landscape.

There, with a shaking hand pointed squarely at the sorcerer stood one of the palace guard. Blood and filth coated his kilt and the tip of the spear that now lay in the earth at his feet. With the soft sound of sand snatching beneath his simple sandals he scrambled to retrieve his weapon, only to drop it once more from trembling hands. He was a young man, barely older than the Pharaoh beside me, yet knowledgeable enough judging by how he beheld the spectacle of Anubis and his new thrall with wide and terrified eyes. His arm tremored as he kept it leveled upon Anubis and his knocking knees shook with fear.

"N-" He staggered backwards and his words stumbled from his mouth as his feet did the rocks beneath him. "N-Necromancer!" He yelled.

It seemed Anubis's use of forbidden magic had not gone unobserved after all.

"Necromancer!" he shouted again, his cry echoing around the canyon's walls and drawing the attention of ever yet more guards as they halted in their duties of collecting the dead to pay mind to the screaming youth among their ranks.

Anubis merely scowled as several of the Pharaoh's guard rounded on him, fingering their weapons and eyeing him warily.

"Halt priest." One demanded.

"A necromancer? Here?" Came a second voice from the swiftly swelling rabble.

"Who goes there?" A third bellowed.

They exchange worried glances and raised their weapons as the youngest of their number continued to quiver and point.

"Make way." Ordered a final and much gruffer voice.

A Hand of the Pharaoh marched through their ranks with an air of unyielding authority that effortlessly parted the soldiers around him to allow him passage. He was a solidly built, ill-shaven and imposing man, nearing the soaring height of Anubis himself. The gathering of guards deferred to him in apprehensive glances as he encroached upon Anubis and his servant with the bleak and serious expression of a veteran who had survived too many conflicts to bother projecting joviality or good humor.

Surrounded by so many armed men and now a Hand of Pharaoh did nothing to sour Anubis's confidence. He laughed in their faces. "Mwhahahaha. You would dare oppose me?"

The crass chuckle was all the confirmation of guilt the soldiers needed and each of them readied their weapons for battle.

"This is why none of my men returned to the palace afterwards." The Pharaoh commented from my side, crossing his arms and watching with wrath-filled displeasure as Anubis simply smirked at his transgressors. "It was soon after this day that word of an evil sorcerer wielding an unusual Millennium Item reached the palace." He scowled, looking much like Seto Kaiba in this moment, as if the Other Seto's manner was in some way contagious.

The outcome of that tale was one I was much more familiar with than the events unfolding before us.

It was a relatively simple story. A cruel sorcerer armed with monsters and the evil magics of the Pyramid of Light had risen to power, purportedly seeking to bring forth the end of all life. Our courageous Pharaoh had stepped up, claiming victory over this so called 'Anubis' using the mystical powers of the Dagger of Fate. Our king was renowned for besting anyone who would dare bring threat to his people or kingdom and so it was a commonplace tale of valor and justice known widely throughout the palace. And yet, even knowing that Anubis would eventually be defeated by our Pharaoh did not ease the disquiet of watching this prelude to the sorcerer's uprising. I felt the fright of the men as easily as if it were my own as I watched the soldiers grip the hilts of their weapons and shift in anxious anticipation of an order to attack.

The Hand of the Pharaoh stepped forward once more, shortening the distance between Anubis and himself and placing his body between that of the sorcerer and his men. "Stand down and surrender so you may be returned to the palace and face the Pharaoh's judgement." He demanded, a flinty look shining in his eyes.

"Mwhahaha." What began as a quiet dark chortle grew in volume and malevolence until it echoed around the canyon as a deafening roar. "MWHAHAHAHA."

"Seize him!"

Anubis's laughter died only as he began to chant a new and nefarious incantation.

With a swing of his sinewy arm he cast his hand over one of the bodies nearest to him as the Hand of the Pharaoh beckoned his men onward with a shout. Scattered all around him the remains of men, women and children writhed and churned, their corpses melting in on themselves and causing the skin of their bodies to bubble and blister before their innards and bones spewed forth, erupting into a black ooze. The stinking abominations slithered into the air, formless for only a moment before new tendrils of necrotic filth lunged free of the sickly pillars to skewer each of the guards through their hearts like the branches of a vile and wicked tree.

"Guuurphf."

"W'raaaaaaah!"

"Hanuuuuuung!"

Each soldier's cry was a unique howl of pain and disbelief as Anubis's foul conjurations speared them through their chests to burst out of their backs in shocking waves of blood and gore.

I did not wish to, but could not repress the urge to wretch.

"Isis?" The Pharaoh called, at my side in an instant as I lost whatever remained in my stomach to the heinous display. I was not usually so tender-stomached as this, but the sight, the smell and the life within me worked in union to disrupt my constitution. The Pharaoh placed his hand upon my arm, and I covered it with my other hand gently as I silently reassured him.

The Pharaoh gazed at me speculatively, and then squeezed my hand before letting me be with a nod of acceptance. The gesture was without doubt one he had learned from Mahad. It was a soft and subtle clasping of hands that Mahad and I had come to share many times under the veil of cloaks or tables. Though I was grateful to have known the reign of not one but two Pharaoh's kind enough of spirit to respect and worry for his priests my heart ached mildly at the reminder of the Magician's inadvertently appropriated habit.

Together our eyes were drawn back upward as the bodies of all but one soldier fell listless and bleeding to earth with the heavy sounds of impacted sand.

"Men?" The Hand of the Pharaoh barked, quickly surveying the bodies of his downed brethren for life and gritting his teeth as he found none. His remaining voice drew our eyes back to the phantoms.

"Dead and ready to serve me." Anubis kicked aside the limp body of the youngest of the soldiers that had perished near his feet, the young man's glassy eyes still wide open in horror as the desert wind whipped grains of sand into them. "As you should be." He added, raising his brawny arm into the air once more and thrusting it in the Hand's direction.

The Hand twirled and pivoted, parrying the strikes of the dripping tendrils as they lunched at him with tips as sharp as knives. The barrage was endless and at my side the Pharaoh's hands tightened into fists as he beheld a loyal soldier fight for his life against much uneven odds. The necrotic limbs attacked from all sides, relentless and unending as each blocked strike only caused them to reform once more and resume their assault. Sweat dripped from the Hand's temples as he side-stepped, dodged and deflected the blows until the back of his heel caught on the arm of one of his murdered men and he fell backwards to the earth.

The waifish woman was at her master's back, grinning as hatefully as Anubis himself as the pair bared down upon the fallen Hand. Defeated but not yet robbed of his dignity the warrior merely clasped the lion-headed amulet strung about his neck in one large hand and closed his eyes in preparation for death.

Anubis drew himself up to his full height, casting his shadow over the Hand of the Pharaoh like an executor's axe.

"KAAAAA-bummmmmmfffff!"

A short way ahead of us an outward explosion of bright, tumultuous light that burned and raged like the sun itself reverberated through the pass, jostling loose stones and rocks from the canyon walls that surrounded us.

The Pharaoh reacted to without sparing a moment.

With a firm but gentle grip he pulled me to one side as the ghostly echos of Anubis and the Hand parted in a whirl of smoke under a boulder that was shaken free by the deafening feat of spellcraft. Pebbles showered down and the Pharaoh's Celtic Guardian deftly stepped up to slice through another large chunk of stone as it fell toward us - carving it down the middle. The rock fell away at either side of our bodies like the two halves of a neatly severed egg as the Pharaoh raised the peculiar armor he wore on his arm that matched that of Seto Kaiba's own.

In a flash of light magic the Pharaoh called up small golden scripture, written in what I assumed to be the language that our king and Seto Kaiba seemed to share on odd occasions. The foreign tongue was a lingering memento and poignant reminder of our Pharaoh's experiences in another time and place.

"Induced Explosion?" The Pharaoh questioned aloud, his eyebrows knitting together with the begins of irritation as he beheld the writings. "And Kaiser Sea Horse has been destroyed!" He noted with an undertow of concern before defying all sense by beginning to sprint head-long towards the source of the miniature sun's discharge. "Kaiba!" The Pharaoh shouted furiously into the distance as his raw speed made my much slower jog appear lethargic in comparison.

A nearby cave collapsed from the quakes that still pounded the ground beneath my feet and the freezing air stabbed at my lungs as I ran toward the Pharaoh's back. My eyes caught a fleeting look of raw fury that crossed the Pharaoh's face as he passed the crumbling cavern and his features promised a kingly reckoning was soon to come. Indeed, despite warning Seto Kaiba against damaging the Magician, had Mahad's body been hiding within the collapsing cave he could have very easily been crushed to death. I did not know the exact location, but I suspected the same could be said for the late Queen's tomb.

The Pharaoh scowled and scattered the sand around his feet as he came to a halt. As I rounded a final rock to catch up to him our quarry was revealed.

With the swirling and quite recognizable magic of our High Priest's Negate Attack, Seto Kaiba blocked a burst of magic from the stave of one Mahad while a second watched the fight impassively from across the new battlefield.

"Celtic Guardian, help Kaiba!" The Pharaoh commanded with haste, pointing the Ka into battle. The green-garbed warrior's cloak swished like a horse's tail as he intercepted the next blow of Seto Kaiba's attacker. The silver blade and Mahad's staff locked against each other with the sound of clattering and grinding steel as the Celtic Guardian and Illusion of Mahad struggled to overpower one another.

Freed from having to deal with his attacker any longer Seto Kaiba turned on the other Mahad that watched from the sides of the canyon.

"That's the real one." He growled with a piercing look towards the true Mahad. His words still produced billows of haze as he spoke them but his body was not shivering or blue and red tipped in it's extremities as the Pharaoh's and my own had become. I had thought his lengthy garb foolish in the Egyptian sun when I had first laid eyes upon it but here, awash in the deathly chill of Call of the Haunted, the vestments had merit. Perhaps the place he came from was a cold one. Such an environment would stand to suit the Other Seto, from what I had observed of him.

The foe the Pharaoh named 'Andro Sphinx' watched us from behind Mahad's face with unreadable eyes, seeming none the more perturbed for being quickly ousted, or the arrival of Seto Kaiba's reinforcements. Despite being largely unaffected by our appearance he coiled his muscles as though about to attack.

"Move!" Our High Priest's reincarnation bellowed back at us next.

Mahad's true body charged at us, darting straight through the remains of several phantasmal ghosts and doggedly followed by the Other Seto, his white coat flying behind him as he gave chase to the Magician. As he neared me I saw his collar was newly singed on one side but beyond that there was no other indication of damage done to his person. The Pharaoh had intervened quickly enough to prevent it and for that I was thankful.

Seto Kaiba's boots skidded to a stop in the sand, disrupting the fog spirits all around us as his arm sliced through the haze to place a card on his strange and ethereal DiaDhank.

"Shadow Spell!" He beckoned, a void of purple so dark and deep it appeared purest black at a first glance ripping open in the air above him and cutting through the sky above our heads towards Mahad. From its depths hundreds of magical chains swiftly struck downward at the earth like bolts of lightening. Mahad's headdress was knocked from his crown as he ducked under one chain, only to be ensnared by another.

The Pharaoh readied his own armament to join his companion's, taking a place at Seto Kaiba's side as though he had done so many times before.

"How did you find him so quickly?" He asked, his pointed gaze not leaving Mahad's body now that he was in our midst once more. I appreciated the Pharaoh's diligence. With an impressive number of spells at Mahad's disposal he would be difficult to locate if he attempted to flee once again. Until Mahad was himself once more that risk was ever-present.

"I activated Induced Explosion and let the detonation find him for me." Seto Kaiba grunted back.

The Pharaoh's expression pinched in irritation at that.

The taller of the pair squared his shoulders and watched through narrow eyes as more and more of his chains successfully coiled around Mahad's body. "Try running away again now." He sneered at the captured Magician.

Mahad's body pulled tight against the chains with finality before stilling and relaxing into their hold.

"Mwhaha. That's it, submit like a beaten dog." The Other Seto goaded, his boisterous laugh drawing the Pharaoh's eyes in a silent reprimand.

The High Priest and he truly were alike. That thought was inescapable as I watched a young man who was not our Seto heckle the Magician as if he was my arrogant young friend's magical duplicate. Much like our High Priest I suspected Seto Kaiba was about to be faced with the humbling realization that even weakened, damaged and drained as he was, Mahad was no novice sorcerer, nor so easily bested.

The Pharaoh's actions echoed my doubts.

Despite his face conveying a growing distaste for Seto Kaiba's actions the Pharaoh nevertheless remained focused upon the Magician as he readied a miniature tablet in his hand, angling his wrist to place it upon the face of his odd DiaDhank with a stiff flourish hampered by the cold.

Far from delighting in long speeches as his master seemed to, the creature that subdued Mahad's virtuous spirit was one of few words. Two alone was all he offered before closing his eyes.

"Another time."

I sensed it as the rapidly exhausting remains of Mahad's magic gathered in great concentration at the center of his being, before lancing outwards in every direction and burning away the chains that bound his limbs as if the metal was but simple papyrus.

With a final backwards bound to free himself he conjured a new spell.

**Atem**

With one fluid motion Illusion Magic was discarded from the field as Andro Sphinx beckoned the magic of Double Spell to his aid. In a burst of dark light the remaining Illusion still locked in battle with my Celtic Guardian blew apart. My Guardian's blade sailed through now empty air as his opponent vanished mid-swing before the loyal warrior turned and sprinted to return to my side.

A richly colored iridescent pool of pure arcana welled up in the ground beneath our feet, casting tiny spheres of glowing light around us as Double Spell swelled in anticipation of its caster's declaration.

"Swords of Revealing Light." Our foe called out, beckoning forth the protective swords that I had used to temporarily seal Anubis in the throne room from my graveyard. Each of the gleaming ethereal blades flew upward from Double Spell's incandescent depths to hover above over our heads. He was intending to pen us within my own field of mystical imprisonment!

I glanced briefly to Kaiba, suspecting he had something better suited for repelling one of my own spell cards but to my surprise he merely stood in place, glaring at me. His expression was surly but I didn't have time to negotiate his apparently foul mood.

As he made no move to help it was up to me to act.

"I activate Bounce Spell!" I declared in response, the words punctuated by yet another huff of chilled breath. The cold was making my fingers numb and had slightly reddened their tips but that wouldn't prevent me from activating my card.

Rendered quickly by Kaiba's holograms, Bounce Spell's golden surface appeared swiftly at my side, the ebony pupil of the tablet's single eye pointedly focusing the effects of Swords of Revealing Light back on Mahad's body. The blades twirled in the air, reorienting themselves to point instead at Andro Sphinx before swooping down to hover around him, blocking his every side and the open sky above his head.

Imprisoned by the magical confines of my Swords Andro Sphinx went still once more, breathing deeply in heavy exhalations of hot breath that turned to vapor as they met the freezing air, much like my own.

Mahad's fingers tested one of the Swords, the magic of my blades harmlessly buffeting his hand backwards.

Cornered and trapped in a similar situation Sphinx Teleia had turned rabid and feral, thrashing against the boundaries of her prison like a wounded animal. Her reaction was the difference between night and day. As Andro Sphinx instead closed his eyes and folded his legs beneath him he knelt down on the earth and bowed his head, for all purposes appearing to be ignoring everything and everyone around him now that he'd confirmed escape wasn't possible.

The cold pressed in as the battle calmed with Andro Sphinx's submission but despite the frost and the chill I felt only a flame of pure ire heat my stomach, and it wasn't aimed at our defeated enemy.

"Induced Explosion?" I questioned through gritted teeth, trying to sheath my anger as I waited for Kaiba to explain himself.

How could he play something so intentionally destructive after learning everything this place meant to me? Knowing that my Mother's tomb was here, out of sight? After seeing firsthand everything that I'd done to protect it from harm! The sacrifices made, and lives cut short! Was it simply obstinate thoughtlessness or was he trying to punish me for Isis's words? For my beliefs? Kaiba had reacted very poorly to being called 'worthless' once before and was indeed vindictive enough to do so again.

"Why that card of all choices?" I demanded to know, hoping - if foolishly - that his reply wasn't some arbitrary excuse for his vengeful demolition.

"Because I'll do whatever it takes to win." He deadpanned, sauntering passed Isis and our captive and glancing around the scarred canyon walls, dislodged stone and other marks of destruction that he'd wrought. "Unlike you."

"Kaiba." I warned. His reply was so encumbered by flaws that I didn't have any idea where to begin addressing it.

Kaiba straightened his back, as he often did when wanting to intimidate others. "If the living are worthless then why bother trying to win this whole duel in the first place, Pharaoh? You could've just let him try and kill me." He added, using the edge of his boot to flick sand at the meditative Andro Sphinx who didn't even flinch as the grit sprayed over him.

"What?!" How could he say something so intentionally obtuse?

"If we lose Anubis goes back to the real world in my place. That gets him out of your afterlife either way." He mocked, with an uncaring shrug and a challenging grimace. "So why bother?"

It seemed that Kaiba liked to choose the most inopportune moments possible to ambush me with the full force of whatever thoughts and grievances his mind collected like rainwater. He was likely trying to catch me off guard and in doing so squeeze out some 'true' answer that worked in his favor, or played to his varying disturbances. It seemed to be working. Kaiba's deliberate goading was wearing down what remained of my composure.

"Because you'd be trapped here!" I shouted at the damned oaf.

He smirked at the slip I had made by using the word 'trapped', as though he'd scored a point in a contest that only he knew about.

"And?" He sarcastically parried with an obviously willful ignorance.

"And because you don't belong here." Hammering this through his thick skull was clearly going to be no easy task. No matter how far the bounds of my afterlife stretched I doubted the width or breadth of its expanse could either satisfy Kaiba or hold his attention. This place would be only a prison to him. "You'd go mad in this world, in my time, without your technology and without Mokuba." I countered. His teeth gritted at the mention of Mokuba's name, as I'd expected them too. If it took a mallet with his little brother's name attached to it then so be it! Predictably, evoking his younger brother's name bought me a momentary reprieve from Kaiba's belligerent hissing so I pressed my advantage.

"I respect you too greatly to wish that fate on you." Despite the fact that he had wished exactly the reverse of that fate on me. Had Kaiba's methodology returned me successfully to Yugi's world I doubted he'd care about the blemish kidnapping and subverting my desires would have left on our long term relationship. Suddenly the closeness we'd begun to try to cultivate seemed so fragile, given the knowledge that had Kaiba's plan not failed there would be no way I could ever forgive him or wish us closer.

"There are people waiting for you to return, Kaiba." I all but yelled at him as I saw steeliness return to his posture.

The volume of reply matched mine, the two sentences echoing against each other as they bounced around the canyon.

"For you as well!"

He turned my words on me and stole the breath from my chest.

My friends. In that moment I imagined them all standing beside me, everyone one of them. I could smell the floral perfume that Téa wore and hear the subtle rubbery squeak of Joey's sneakers as he fidgeted behind my back as if they were here with me. The sensation of them lasted only a second and the grip of the frigid temperature seemed to bite ever more sharply as it passed.

"Actual living people, who are alive." Kaiba barked emphatically. His attention cut across me to Isis with a pointed leer. "She can't even tell me if she and the rest of your toadies are real or fake." With a feckless snatch of his wrist Kaiba gestured between the magical phantoms lining the landscape and my priestess. Isis wisely remained silent as Kaiba continued. "The only difference between these ghosts and that one is that she has better graphics." He snapped. "Or is it that Yugi and his gang of dolts aren't enough for you anymore?"

His words delivered a heavy blow and I balked at his brazenness. That wasn't the case and he knew it! I began to reprimand his foolish accusation but something in the way he held my gaze made me think twice.

I was beginning to understand the non-verbal cues that Kaiba wove into his words as thoughtlessly as his own breath. He was testing me somehow; perhaps this whole argument was part of it. Wary calculation and a grim expectation battled across his features. I'd missed something, some greater meaning to his words.

Ah.

There was a second question hidden beneath the first one.

"Of course they're enough, and so are you." I pressed, easing my tone toward the second half of that statement. The anticipatory disappointment in his gleaming eyes was eased for a moment before they hardened again as I finished what needed to be said. "But that isn't my destiny. Fate has led me here, Kaiba."

I was running out of ways to rephrase that for him.

Kaiba jerked a finger at the ghostly bodies lying all around us and sneered, "Just like it did all of them?"

I returned his petty scowl with one of my own.

"Everyone's 'destined' to die, Pharaoh." He spat my title at me as though the word was dirt coating his tongue. "The bit before that's called 'life' and that's what matters." With that conclusion in place Kaiba crossed his arms and leaned back from his hips, the planes of his body echoing the tall and immovable declaration.

I felt Kaiba was touching on something profound, but couldn't place what and I didn't care to with the shear annoyance he currently represented. It stung the depths of my mind, the irritating uncomfortable feeling like a stray grain of sand caught in an eye.

Though short compared to my Father's and Mother's my life had been important. My reign had been just a fraction of theirs, but in that time I'd defeated many evils and sealed away the dark magics of the Shadow Realm, Shadow Games and Zorc the Dark One with my own name and memories so that they could never threaten the world again.

"I lived a good life and left behind a worthy legacy." I contested. Despite everything around us and all of the specters the Call of the Haunted had willed into being I didn't doubt that. Kaiba scoffed, attempting to interrupt me with a dismissive jeer of something but I didn't allow his words to impede my own. "The modern world as you know it may not have come to be if it weren't for that!"

"And thanks to me you could cash in all that store credit for a free do-over, but you won't?" Kaiba argued back.

My patience snapped like a dry tree branch under the weight of his petulant heckling.

"I don't owe you an explanation!" I roared, finally losing my temper with him. "This debate is over!" I flashed the open palm of my hand at him and held it in front of his face, demanding his silence. Kaiba had riled me with such precise intent that I was surprised when he snapped his mouth shut and promptly stopped speaking. Besides the rage-filled echo of my own voice around the rocks everything else fell silent, almost as if Kaiba really would leave the topic alone.

"Tch!" A defiant "For now." Was all he had left to throw in my face as we stared each other down like the rivals we truly were. Abruptly Kaiba's expression darkened to become frustrated again. "Screw last night, and this morning! We're too different for 'this'!"

Of that I was acutely aware.

"Isn't everything supposed to be different now? It's that how this works?" He snarked but there was a hint of real and true upset was beneath the sarcastic and vague question.

I was surprised by how comfortable Kaiba was discussing this topic with Isis and one of our enemies as active bystanders. He seemed to ignore them completely, as though both were beyond being acknowledged. Isis's own attention was elsewhere, staring intently at Mahad's body as Kaiba regarded her with the critical passing glance he gave his own holograms.

"We didn't even manage to put twenty-four hours on the clock." His rueful smirk was so bitter I could almost taste it. Was he proposing an end to whatever this young and terse thing we were nurturing was? Already? I was annoyed with him but that wasn't what I wanted and giving up so easily wasn't in either of our natures.

"Kaiba. You're an ass." I declared, still enraged with him but feeling my hot uncomfortable emotions be cooled by his odd and roundabout way of demanding reassurance. "No new courtship can magically erase that." His eyes narrowed at me like those of an angry cat. "But just because you can't have your way doesn't make everything a loss." I settled upon.

"Hnh." He grunted back, throwing his head to one side so he wouldn't have to look at me.

I was still exasperated by him and fortunately it looked like he could sense that, which was the first display of intelligence I'd seen from the pig-headed cretin since he'd picked this ill-timed fight.

"My Pharaoh."

Isis's calm voice was a soothing breeze compared to Kaiba's unruly tempest, although it carried a hint of urgency and unrest that wasn't normal.

My priestess's eyes drew mine to Mahad's kneeling stolen body. Andro Sphinx was still bound within the limits that Swords of Revealing Light would allow him, but after a second I sensed as she did the thing that had drawn her attention.

Through shear concentration Mahad's body was channeling the last of its energies into something unknown.


	27. Chapter 27

**Kaiba**

That blowhard! He was living in past and I was gonna snap him out of it.

_"I don't owe you an explanation! This debate is over!" _

He wanted to know why I'd played one of my own cards from my own deck and then shouted that nonsense at me? Just who did he think he was talking to?

I hadn't been intending to use Induced Explosion that way, but like hell I was going to tell him that now.

From the look of it the canyon had been only way in and out of the Pharaoh's little vacation spot and just narrow enough to make a perfect choke point. Call of the Haunted was just another distraction, so I'd left Atem and Isis to their delusions to get something useful done. My plan had been to use a controlled Explosion to blast free enough rocks to seal the exit into the desert. Their precious Magician wouldn't have been able to escape, or not without using a spell or summoning a new monster. Thanks to my Duel Disks we'd have known the moment he'd tried anything and I'd have been able to take him out.

Short of putting up official KaibaCorp demolition signs with that ridiculous picture of a Blue-Eyes in a hard hat that the marketing team were so proud of I'd been ready to follow through, until the Magician had jumped me and I'd had to improvise.

"My Pharaoh."

For once I appreciated Isis's dull Egyptian drawl as she lured away the death glare Atem had been trying to tattoo the side of my face with. His anger made my skin crawl, which was new. Usually I didn't care about redundant things like that but now, knowing how irritated he was after we'd started making googly eyes at each other last night, it felt different. Pathetic. I ignored such pitiful pangs of sentimentality and turned to see what Isis was droning about now.

"I sense something is amiss." She added and both of them turned to stare at 'Mahad', or 'Andro Sphinx', or whoever, like he was a live bomb that had begun to count down to zero. I rolled my eyes at their dramatics. I couldn't 'sense' anything.

I kept my sights on the Pharaoh, trying to gauge what it was he thought was about to happen. His eyes abruptly widened, like they did whenever one of his opponents activated a devastating trap card on him.

"He's casting -" Atem shouted, only to be interrupted by Andro Sphinx. Apparently he was done kneeling in the dirt like a pitiful third tier duelist.

"-Magician Navigation."

The ring of glyphs that featured on most of the Dark Magician related cards spun up on the ground in a flash. A pulsating black hole in the floor that looked suspiciously like a singularity spawned under the Magician's feet and with an apathetic stare Andro Sphinx let himself sink into. That figured. Swords of Revealing Light was surrounding him on every side except one so of course that was how he'd try to escape. He disappeared from sight through the void on the ground like he'd melted into it.

"After him!" The Pharaoh commanded, the muscles of his arm straining as he lashed his hand around to discard Swords of Revealing Light and the Celtic Guardian. He thanked his monster as it despawned with a curt dip of his head and ran at the magical rabbit hole. "Quickly! The portal won't stay open for long." He shouted as he jumped into it and vanished down the damn thing.

"Tch!" I sprinted to keep up with him and then slid to a stop as I reached the edge of the portal's circumference. He was right, the diameter of it was shrinking, fast.

"Hurry up!" Barking back at Isis didn't get her moving any quicker. It was an annoyance but I waited for her. There wasn't any point in digging myself any deeper into the Pharaoh's bad books by ditching his priestess. She nodded to me as she caught up and I took that as her way of saying 'thank you' before cautiously stepping into the portal one foot at a time. As soon the top of her head disappeared into the magical paddling pool I jumped in after them.

"Ghnnn!" I gritted my teeth and prepared for the worst as I free fell through a dark twisting tunnel. The empty vacuum was disorientating. It didn't feel of anything. It wasn't hot, or cold and there was no sound. Without something to look at the only evidence I hadn't gone blind was that I could still see my hand in front of my face. I clenched my fist in anticipation.

Wherever this thing was going to let us out it would be irritating. Our enemy had the advantage and could abuse it however he wanted. Marooning us somewhere in the middle of the desert would be a smart move, or out at sea. Even dropping us off of a cliff would do the job. I kept my Duel Disk close, ready to take on whatever was coming next.

There was a shift in the air as I got to the other side. That was the only way I could tell that I'd landed as I staggered free of the portal's mouth. Wherever I was it was pitch black. There was nothing but trapped heat and darkness along with the subtle shifting sounds of linen to my left and the soft slapping noise that Atem's earrings made against his face whenever he turned his head too quickly. My best guess was we'd come out in another cave, or knowing this place, a tomb.

I didn't like guessing games – duels with the Pharaoh had conditioned me to despise them. I refused to play one a second longer than I had to.

"Zwwwwwp." The area was lit up with a massive bloom of light from my Duel Disk.

Beside me Atem and Isis pulled their arms over their eyes to block out the sudden brightness before slowly lowering them again as the glare passed. My devices would beat the dull glow the Millennium Puzzle was able to put out any day. Holograms were light so of course the units could be used this way if wearing the worlds least practical flashlight on your wrist was your thing. I held up my arm for Atem to see and silently pointed at the button I'd used to active the Duel Disk's omni-directional projectors. Just as I predicted he copied the gesture to active his own without needing to be told any more than that. He glanced over his unit curiously as the yellow light of his UI fought against the blue of mine. The two battled over the features of our new location.

"Where are we?" I muttered, casting my arm around to spread out the field of illumination.

Our lights bounced off the sharp corners of a room that was the shape of a truncated square pyramid, with a tall vertical shaft that extended upward like a massive chimney. It looked like a large chamber that fed off into several alcoves that were just out of sight, hidden in darkness.

The layout was familiar, but it shouldn't have been.

It looked almost exactly the same as the vault I'd built under the Kaiba Mansion to store my cards in. The idea of it was idiotic, but the intense feeling of deja vu was difficult to rationalize. I flashed my Duel Disk towards where the elevator back up into the house would be if this really was my card vault. Of course we were thousands of years too early for one to be there, but it aggravated me when a long and steep stone staircase leading down the elevated platform we were on took its place as a parody.

I turned around to finish completing a three hundred and sixty degree inspection of the place. As my Duel Disk directly illuminated the walls the sight sent a shock to my system.

"What the-?"

Lining the walls from the floor to the ceiling were thousands of stone tablets. The carved images were rough in comparison to the work of Industrial Illusion's illustrators and graphic designers, but the duel monsters were easily recognizable regardless. A lot of them were from the older card packs – monsters from the earlier generation of the game before Pegasus started over exerting his artistic license and making up stupid-looking new cards from nothing. Ironically with Effect Monsters replacing their vanilla counterparts in most duelist's decks these were now some of the least played creatures in all of Duel Monsters.

"It appears we have emerged within the Shrine of Wedju." Isis noted in a hushed voice, like if she spoke too loud she'd wake up the wall decor. I scowled at her in the low light and apparently she took that as an invitation to explain more about this gaudy tourist trap. "It is a holy place." She whispered, "The tablets of the gods rest here, along with the creatures exorcised from the hearts of sinners and sealed into stone."

Atem's sandals slapped against stone floor as he cautiously walked around the square platform we were standing on, pointing his Duel Disk into every shadowy corner. "Where did Andro Sphinx escape to?" The Pharaoh's usual loud-mouthed projection was missing so it looked like even he felt the need to treat this place with Isis's typically superstitious reverence. The yellow and blue lines of light from my Duel Disk divided Atem's face in two and vied for territory across his stiff expression as our Duel Disk's cast attractive shadows around each of his muscle groupings.

I joined Atem in doing a final once over of the place, pointing my overblown flashlight down into the depths of the precipitous drop that surrounded our platform on all sides before drawing an inevitable conclusion. "He's not here."

"We're just east of the palace." The Pharaoh mused with a pensive frown. I didn't know if he'd said that for my benefit or not but it seemed unlikely while I was out of his good graces. "We must find him before he's mistaken for Mahad by the palace guard, or escapes into the city to threaten my people."

I didn't care what or where this place was. All I wanted to know was why it looked so much like my damn vault. The stone tablets lined the walls exactly where my card trays should be – the only detail missing was my custom Blue-Eyes statue. I turned to double check, just to make sure.

"What!?" I snapped as my holographic projectors roved over something impossible. This place was mocking me with its likeness.

The Pharaoh and Isis ran over, coming to a stand still and wearing matching expressions as they got a look at what I was scanning my unit's light over. It was a crude picture and the pose was stiff but the stone tablet was definitely of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

My Dragon didn't get to be here! I wouldn't allow it. There were other monsters from my earlier decks surrounding it too, Battle Ox and La Jinn, along with some from the Pharaoh's deck. The Dark Magician card stood out, only because there were few other monsters around with such moronic hats.

"These are my cards!" I'd chosen them myself, I even remembered the booster pack La Jinn had come out of. They were from my deck; one I'd made independent of anyone or anything else. Why were they here, grouped together like an old deck list from Duelist Kingdom?

The Pharaoh frowned. "Many of the monsters from both of our decks are sealed here." He noted.

He couldn't cross the void between the platform and the chamber walls put still reached out a hand and as if he wanted to touch the tablet depicting his Dark Magician to brush away some dust, his look becoming a lot darker as Isis's softened up to look hollow and haunted instead. "Though Mahad is here in my afterlife an irretrievable part of him will always be locked in this stone." He inclined his head to the tablet like it could see him before turning toward the narrow stairs that would take us down to the exit of this so called 'shrine'. "I won't allow him to be bound again, especially within his own body!"

His eyes burned as he got fired up, all five foot nothing of him seeming to ripple and radiate with energy. Words weren't needed, just a meaningful glance over his shoulder and I knew to follow his lead as he made for the first step with his ruined cape billowing behind him like it had caught the wind even in this airless place.

Isis didn't move for a second. She stood in front of the tablet like it had petrified her before snapping out of it and touching her hand to her heart. I followed the Pharaoh as he descended the steps and could hear the pad of Isis's shoes behind me as she eventually did the same. She gave the tablet a despairing backwards glance, the sort of one Mokuba had given me whenever one of my private tutors showed up to escort me away from him and back into another one of Gozaburo's mandated lessons. If even Isis was breaking her mask and throwing around such puppy dog eyes then that definitely meant whatever they thought had happened to lock the Magician into that slab had been bad.

That prepubescent punk Noah had turned Mokuba and me to stone before, but that had been in a Virtual World where programming routines could do whatever the hell they wanted to our digital avatars. Real people having Duel Monsters pulled out of them or being magically sealed into rocks was just more nonsense. Despite how implausible it was there was no auguring with the evidence lining the walls. Trying to consolidate my observations of the magical bull in this world with the scientific certainties of the real one gave me a headache.

The Pharaoh and I really were to different for 'this'. This was all solid evidence that we should call our 'thing' off. It was probably better that we were figuring out such an innate incompatibility so early on. That way neither of us had to waste our time investing any further in the other.

Ending it was sensible and practical, especially while he was so pissed with me.

It also wasn't something I wanted to do.

Stupid as it was, I wanted those weird-feeling touches and unlikely lip locks to continue. Every time they happened it was like I could feel Atem's appreciation and respect for me in a way that words had never been enough to communicate. I needed more of that, and I wanted to keep flipping over the unknown cards in his deck - the ones that made up who he was. It gave me the same excited anticipation I barely remembered feeling a long time ago, when Duel Monsters was freshly released and my biological father would occasionally buy me a booster pack. In those days I would carefully tease open the foil packaging and slowly slide out each new card, because no matter the spell, trap or monster's attack power every one of them was valuable. I hadn't felt that way about anything in years, not since I was that kid scrounging up cards for my first deck.

Damn it. My boot loudly scuffed against one of the steps as I stamped down on it with irritation. This was my first argument, with him since we'd started 'messing around' – if that label even still applied anymore, or had ever applied in the first place.

I was used to keeping my cards close to my chest – that was the best way to crush an opponent, but Atem wasn't an enemy this time. I needed to adapt my strategy. The first step in doing that was knowing what the purpose of the adaption was and I'd just figured that out. I wanted another shot at the touchy feely hand holding nonsense. That wasn't going to happen if I kept playing by our old rule set. In every product's life time there was a choice to either double down on what you knew or innovate. Shouting matches with Atem had never been a problem before, but things weren't like before. 'Before' was in the past. That took doubling down off the table.

I smirked in the chamber's gloom. That suited me fine. Innovation played to my strengths. Besides, I liked a challenge.

Tempting as it was to leave the Pharaoh to stew on things for a while before setting him straight, negativity had a way of sticking around and soaking into everything like a bad smell. I knew that well enough.

It was time to deal with this.

"Hey-" I caught his wrist as he cleared the final step.

Pillars lining the exit to the outside world framed him. The sunlight breaching the shrine's entrance back lit his body, making the dark red parts of his hair glow just as brightly as his eyes. The natural light creeping through the entryway traced all the outer contours of his silhouette, emphasizing the strength of his muscles, the richness of his skin tone and vaguely making it look like he was glowing with some inexplicable aura.

Despite the heavy heat of this place Atem's skin was cool to the touch as I held his arm between us, watching him pause mid step and level those arrogant laser eyes on me. Apparently he knew why I'd grabbed him, if his stiff statement of "Kaiba. There isn't time for this now." was anything to go by.

That was fine with me. Making it quick suited my purposes.

Isis didn't spare a glance as she passed us by and continued through the doorway. I had to hand it to her, she knew when to get the hell out of Dodge. The daylight devoured her as she escaped out the exit and it felt better to know I wasn't gonna have a third wheel watching me.

"Induced Explosion-" I began. That hadn't been what half our argument was even about but he'd asked so fine, I'd let him know what I'd been thinking just this once.

His eyebrow perked up as he stared at me, apparently interested to hear what I'd say next despite his previous comment. Searching for a way to phrase what I needed to without sounding simpering or weak was harder than I'd thought it would be.

"I had a reason for playing it." Was what I landed on. "I didn't use it because of you." Technically I had, I'd used it to try trapping his Magician in the canyon because that mattered to him but I didn't owe him anymore of an explanation than that. The Pharaoh's eyebrows pinched together and he studied me with a point blank stare that should have been off putting, but wasn't. Atem was probably assessing my tone and my face. It's what I would have done. "Everything else I said; that's still valid." I concluded for him, to make that crystal clear.

He could take it, or leave it. Apologizing was something I was still getting used to with my own brother, in my own mansion – spilling my guts here where anyone could listen in just beyond the doorway was humiliating. I wasn't sure it'd been worth the sacrifice of my pride until a moment later when the tense frown he'd been wearing let up.

"Alright." He concluded, like he had zero doubts. The look he gave me wasn't warm or friendly, but it was confident. I'd take that third option over the other two any day.

His wrist maneuvered in my grip until he could grab my arm back and clasped it for a second before we parted. I knew we were 'good' again when his blue-tinted lips cut into a smug smirk and he flicked his head towards the Shrine's exit with a goading "Come on. Andro Sphinx will stand little chance against the both of us."

The arid Egyptian breeze was a relief compared to the humid darkness of the shrine.

It tossed around my coat and Atem's cape and hair as we marched down a long outdoor boulevard lined by large statues of ram-headed lions. The detail of the sculpts flanking us as we passed them by was impressive for the backwards time we were in, knowing the level of expertise and amount of man power that must have gone into quarrying the stone and then chiselling it into shape. From here I could see that the wide promenade stretched out to join with the looming structure of the Pharaoh's palace. Isis was up ahead, but I doubted sprinting to catch up with a vassal was the done thing for a king, especially within sight of his own castle, so instead we power-walked side by side.

Atem paused. I didn't bother turning around to see why until he called my name a second later.

"Kaiba."

He was looking pensively at the floor and shifting his weight between his feet. It was almost imperceivable and the only nervous tell he had. I'd never noticed it in person, in fact I'd only caught it for the first time when re-watching old footage of his duels to study for my holographic Pharaoh's authenticity.

"Now that we've returned to the palace things will become -" He hesitated, eyebrows knitting together in concentration as he fished around inside of his head for the right words. "-more formal." He eventually decided upon.

I rolled my eyes.

He peered up at me tentatively, like he was still debating saying something more.

"We won't be able to carry on as we have." He noted.

'As we had' was vague. Did he mean we couldn't keep arguing and making up, or we couldn't keep stealing kisses like horny high schoolers? Most likely both.

"It's your country isn't it?" I countered deadpan, already seeing exactly where this conversation was gonna go. "I thought the 'Pharaoh' could do whatever he wanted." I threw in a smirk of challenge which only made his serious expression intensify.

"He can." Atem agreed, throwing some warning into his voice. "But a wise one doesn't."

I crossed my arms, not impressed at all by that pearl of wisdom. It sounded like he was quoting someone, or something - it was in the abnormal inflections he'd used.

"Relax. I get it." I bit back. Of course I got it; who the hell did he even think he was talking to? "In case you forgot, I have an empire of my own to run." I got the merits of not trying to run my company into the ground, or actively sabotage my own credibility as its leader. That was probably the bigger issue here, since Atem was going to be stuck spending the rest of eternity playing king with this little bunch of moronic minions.

"Yes." Atem agreed, hesitantly, like he was working his way up to something he didn't really want to say. "But you come from a more modern society."

I scoffed. Sure, I wasn't going to get lynched or burned alive for being caught messing around with a guy - if that's what this conversation was even about - but the discovery would still probably tank KaibaCorp's stock for a while and rattle my shareholders and investors. Those old fossils had a stubborn view of the world and didn't like anything that shook it up.

"You're the Pharaoh. Like I said, I get it." I concluded for him, guessing that this conversation was more of a courtesy or managing of expectations than anything else, since we were about to be back in his palace and he was the Pharaoh. If this was a KaibaCorp exhibition I wouldn't let him embarrass with me in front of my public so I could relate.

I grimaced as I thought of something annoying. "Do I have to bow?" I snarked sarcastically.

Atem's apprehensive expression crested into a small grin at that. His eyes flashing like a red alert warning before he blinked slowly to hide the suspicious look.

"Only if I tell you to." He parried smugly.

"Hnh. That's a 'no' then."

Behind his mild smirk Atem huffed with amusement. We set off again in tandem toward the entrance to his palace.

**Yugi**

I guess it made sense that even in Kaiba's Soul Room technology worked exactly the way it was supposed to. I wouldn't have even thought about the cell phone still in my pocket if that hadn't been the case.

Yami was stuck in the main room and couldn't move far enough away from the holographic projectors in there to see the door's clay seal, so I decided to bring a photograph of it to him instead.

The camera on my phone flashed in darkness. Snapping a first picture of the seal worked, but even with the flash on dust and dirt left over in the grooves made the inscription hard to make out. The clay crumbled under my fingers a bit as I brushed the grit away. It felt very fragile so I pulled away from it quickly.

Grandpa had been telling me stories about his adventures and discoveries in Egypt for as long as I'd been old enough to say 'Pharaoh'. I new better than most people not to go messing with this kind of stuff. Clay seals like these - especially tomb seals - tended to carry mean curses and sharing my body with an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh had taught me this kind of thing wasn't to be taken lightly.

I wasn't as good at it as Grandpa, not by a long way, but he'd taught me enough to make me pretty confident reading simple hieroglyphs. Grandpa loved to share his knowledge and it was a family joke that he'd tried to make junior Egyptologists out of everyone in our family in his enthusiasm. He was a great teacher but even with all his lessons I still couldn't read these ones. It was like they were jumbled or mixed up.

The flash went off again as I took a second photo. It was a lot clearer than the first. Yami and Seto watched me with interested eyes as I walked back over to them holding the phone out in my hand.

Yami took it from me cautiously as I handed it over to him and gripped it carefully, like he wasn't sure if it was going to slip through his fingers or not. The screen turned black in the minute it took me to get back to him and pass it between us. It made me smile to see how effortlessly Yami pressed the button to light the screen back up and entered my pin - just from muscle memory. I probably needed to change that. Actually, did Yami knowing it mean Kaiba knew the code to my phone too? That thought was a little creepy.

That feeling faded back a bit as Yami frowned at the screen before shaking his head. He answered my question before I even needed to ask, sounding a little bit discouraged.

"I can't read it."

"Is that a cell phone?" The little Kaiba questioned from his door. The look he gave the device as Yami handed it back to me was completely new. The blue of his irises seemed to shine as he stared at my cell with a wide-eyed look of complete fascination.

"It sure is." I chirped, handing it over for him because it looked like he might implode in disappointment if he didn't get to inspect it closer.

It seemed like even at this age Kaiba was already interested in gadgets.

I'd almost forgotten how much cell phone technology had changed since I was little. Seeing Seto's total and unguarded curiosity was sort of charming.

But this was still Kaiba after all. A bead of sweat dripped down my forehead as he instantly started trying to pull it apart, turning it around in his hands to the back and testing the seams for a way into it. The front camera flashed as he managed to partially peel off the battery cover which made him flip my cell and inspect the front instead.

"Whoever disturbs this chamber will meet the Guardian's fangs." He read skeptically from the screen.

"Huh?" I glanced over his shoulder as he looked up from the photograph on the screen and scowled at me. "How can you read that?" I asked.

"I dunno." Seto shrugged, already dismissing that to spin the phone around again and finish sliding off the back.

"Do you know what this Guardian is?" Yami questioned from the side of his door, staring at Kaiba as the little guy paused his dissection of my phone to reply. It looked like I couldn't hold his attention but at least Yami could.

"Duh. It's the thing that just roared. It guards everything in here." Seto mocked, losing interest in my phone now that Yami was talking to him again.

That seemed counter-intuitive. How could it be a guardian when it had just done so much damage to this place?

Yami read my thoughts as I glanced at him and echoed them out loud for Seto to answer.

"What sort of Guardian destroys the very place it's charged with protecting?"

Seto's reply was bored and simple. "It used to be nicer." He scowled at the battery pack in my phone and turned back to me, suddenly disinterested with the device. "Something happened to it." I took back the two halves of my phone and slid them back together as he concluded. "That's why the doors don't stay shut."

I guessed that was the information he'd been holding back.

Based on the sound the 'guardian' made I already had a pretty good idea of what it was. Also Kaiba could act crazy and say some unexpected things but was pretty predictable, when it came to stuff like this at least. Honestly, I think I'd be more surprised if it wasn't a Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

Yami nodded at me and crossed his arms thoughtfully. "Is there anything else you can tell us about it?" He demanded and narrowed his eyes as the little Kaiba tilted his head to the side slightly and smirked mischievously.

"You're gonna get devoured." He told us and then loudly slammed the door to his room in our faces.

**Atem**

There hadn't been any sarcasm or cynicism in Kaiba's face as he'd crafted an apology that was all but evident, despite the fact it lacked any of the usual words.

I expected that all the sand in Egypt would turn to water and the desert into a great sea before I ever heard the stubborn duelist mutter something as compromising as 'I'm sorry', or openly admit to his own failure of character. What he'd said still lacked any true explanation or justification for his actions – all he'd seemed willing to offer was the notion that such reasoning did indeed exist, even if revealing it would be too open of a gesture. His steely eyes had glared the ferocity of his intent into my face far more effectively than the words themselves and that was what I had accepted.

Now he was keeping stride with me again, facing forward with single-minded focus as we neared the entry way to my throne room. True feeling was beginning to return to my fingers and toes as my heart started to pound like a drum to the rhythm of our shared footsteps, the familiar tentative comradery that accompanied all joint campaigns with Kaiba heating my blood with exhilaration. If he felt the same way then his stoic face revealed nothing, but nor did mine. We were well matched in our determined expressions.

Isis lingered ahead of us, waiting as dutifully as ever for me to assume my rank and enter the chamber first. She bowed as I crossed the threshold.

"Guards!" I commanded. "Secure the doorways."

My priests Karim, Shada and Shimon were gathered in the throne room discussing business among themselves. At my bellowing entrance that conversation ceased and all eyes fell upon me. With matching bows and near perfectly timed acknowledgements of "My Pharaoh." They fell to one knee before me as I ascended the stair case to stand in front of the throne. Their attention didn't break for any length of time, though each of the priests took turns fugitive glancing at the pale version of the Seto they were familiar with as Kaiba strode past them towards the back of the chamber.

"When did you return, Pharaoh?" Shimon asked, a note of concern entering his voice as he looked over my appearance along with those of Isis and Kaiba as they took up positions in the room. Much like Yugi's grandfather very few things slipped passed Priest Shimon. His brow creased, clearly unsettled. He knew full well my personal preference was to be clean and well presented. A handsome appearance was necessary to satisfy the Gods and a Pharaoh should always be garbed in clean linen and shod in white sandals. As I stood before him now I was far from immaculate. His well-meaning worry warmed my spirit. I would have liked to set the elderly priest's fears to rest but there was no time.

I held up my hand for their silence. Ordinarily I would bid them to rise and explain the situation in less formal words, but we had only a short window of opportunity in which to act.

"Mahad, did he pass through here?" I demanded of them.

Karim and Shada exchanged confused glances before Karim answered with a succinct. "No, Pharaoh."

"And he still hasn't played another card to sneak off on either." Kaiba gruffly interjected from the side of the room. He'd found one of Seto's favorite shadowy corners and slipped into it as if he belonged there. The illusion of hiding was lost however, as the light of his Duel Disk illuminated him for all to see. It made his face look sharp and his eyes overly-tired as he swiped through the devices 'cards played' log.

"He can't have gone far." I concluded from that information. Not if Andro Sphinx was on foot as it seemed he must be.

I turned away from Kaiba and back to my priests, straightening my back to address them.

"Mahad is not himself. His body has been possessed by a servant of Anubis." I announced to the room. The news made Shada's brow furrow and Karim's eyes widen slightly in shock.

Even before the bandit Bakura had cast his dark shadow over me and my priests there had always been the ever-present threat of palace spies, thieves or assassins. Unlike during my life there were no threats beyond angry snakes and scorpions in this afterlife. Since claiming my place here it had been a time of peace. The sort that my Father would have been proud to have known. We had been here in this world for just long enough to have begun to forget the daily dangers that once dogged us. It took a fraction of a second for Karim and Shada to recompose their stunned expressions but once so they wore the faces of my loyal and most trusted Sacred Guardians once more. They each nodded in understanding and their features grew attentive and focused. Not for the first time I was stuck by the great honor it was to be surrounded by and blessed with the loyalty of such unwavering souls.

"Karim." My priest kept his head bowed as he rose onto his feet, the strong muscles of his body involuntarily twitching in anticipation of my next order. "Seal the palace gates and all entrances into the city. Allow no one in or out."

"Yes, Pharaoh. I shall see it done." He turned to several of the men lining the room, "You, come with me." He commanded them and with a handful of the palace guard he swept out of the room. My patience with Andro Sphinx's attempts to flee was at an end. It was time to finally trap him, even if it was to be in the palace with us.

In the corner of my eye I saw Isis clutch nervously at her neck, seeking the reassurance of the Necklace that she no longer wore.

"Don't worry. I won't allow him to escape again." I assured her. This I vowed. Until Mahad was himself again none of us could rest easily and Yugi's spirit couldn't be safely freed from whatever dark corner of the Puzzle he was currently enduring. Large as my palace was it wasn't infinitely so; there were only so many places in which to hide. We would find him.

Now I turned back to Shada. "Rotating shifts of lookouts and archers are to be assigned to the palace rooftops and balconies. He must not escape into the sky."

"It will be as you say." Shada confirmed, silently gesturing to another pair of palace guards to follow him as he too departed from the throne room.

Finally I turned to Shimon, bidding he rise with the wave of my hand. His joints did not appreciate long amounts of time spent kneeling and with a grateful smile he slowly found his feet and folded his hands behind his back.

"Where is Seto?" I asked him. I'd noticed my High Priest's absence the moment I'd stepped into the room but only now was there an opportunity to address it. For a moment Shimon's eyes curiously darted over to Kaiba. He was still swiping through his Duel Disk but could apparently sense another's gaze on him. He glanced upwards to stare defiantly back at my priest before returning his attention to his device and pretending to ignore everyone and everything.

With an interested hum Shimon's eyes returned to mine to reply. "Still in the healing chambers, I'm afraid. The High Priest hasn't awoken since your battle against Anubis." Still? It had been days. "The blow to the back of his head was quite a strong one, so the physicians say." I cast my eyes around the throne room, over to the section of wall that had been colored red by the long smear of Seto's blood after Anubis had cracked his head against it. The mark was gone now, as was any other evidence of the battle. It seemed the room had recovered from the ordeal quicker than my High Priest had. I opened my mouth, only to have my next order anticipated fully by the priest before me. "I'll have the healers inform you of when he wakes." Shimon added and I nodded with thanks for his insight.

"What may I do, Pharaoh?" Isis asked, taking a step forward from further back in the room. Her hands were clasped dutifully in her lap and her shoulders were squared in a picture of resilience, but I knew full well that Isis must be just as drained by our time in the wilds as Kaiba and I were.

As much as I understood that she wanted to help, to be part of the force working to return Mahad's body to him, I knew as I saw the hitch of her shoulders slump for a second in well-veiled exhaustion that I couldn't ask any more from her for now.

"Isis, I wish you to rest and restore your strength." I told her sternly, knowing that was contrary to what she was hoping to hear.

She opened her mouth, as though to protest my command, but thought twice as Kaiba's eyes flicked up from his Duel Disk to pointedly stare at her. She caught his solid blue leer and returned it with her own. I didn't know what silent message was being conveyed between the two, or that they had formed any sort of bond to facilitate such communication in the first place, but whatever the wordless exchange was Isis slowly closed her mouth and then turned back to me. With abject hesitation she bowed at the order. "Yes, of course."

"Wise advice, my Pharaoh." Shimon chuckled. An amused undercurrent of suggestion ran through his words. "Perhaps that could stand to be heeded by others, as well." He scratched his nose, feigning an absent-minded innocence as I stifled a sigh at his none too subtle hint.

Though it was tight lipped the priest's jovial manner at least brought a small smile to Isis's lips and she blinked slowly before stepping away. "I shall see to it that early meals are prepared and the royal baths are warmed, should whatever heedence Priest Shimon is recommending be observed." She noted conspiratorially and at that softly glided out of the room.

Just the suggestion of a hot bath made my muscles ache as if raising their hands in support of the idea, but how could I rest while Andro Sphinx still held the ability to escape? With affection my Father had always chided that the delegation of tasks was my greatest weakness. Even as I was trying to correct that, the idea of sitting idly by and doing nothing or assigning tasks to others when they were things I could do myself never sat well. Once Karim and Shada had confirmed my orders were in place perhaps then there would be time for a bath.

A jolt of delirious sensation cut through me as a new and interesting idea sprang to mind unbidden. Perhaps I could coax Kaiba into joining me?

I doubted he'd agree to it without some kind of challenge or a taunt. That made the idea even more attractive. The throne room was not the appropriate place for such thoughts and I batted away the mental image of peeling open Kaiba's black flight suit to reveal the alabaster skin beneath to the open air even as the scene desperately tried to settle at the forefront of my consciousness. It was questionably vivid and even more powerful than any similar impulse had ever been before simply because now it stood a chance of actually happening.

With a cautious swipe of my eyes I glanced over to him, wondering if he was paying any attention to us or still pursuing his Duel Disk. The later was the case, but that swiftly changed as his eyes narrowed at the display and with an irritated "Tch." he glanced upwards to lock eyes with me.

"He just played a card." Kaiba growled.

Curses. What had he in store for us next? What spell could he possibly conjure with Mahad's body so taxed?

My fingers flew across my Duel Disk to conjure up my own display as Andro Sphinx's next move was revealed.

"Dark Renewal." I noted aloud.

Pegasus's equivalent Duel Monsters card had imagined the casket as a western-styled coffin adorned with a vaguely Gothic crucifix the true spell conjured a vessel closer to a sarcophagus in appearance, though the golden detailing and magical star adorning the front remained much the same. It was a spell rarely used by Mahad, intended for rapid recovery not from physical wounds but from magical exhaustion. Its impracticality had led my Magician to regard it as something of a failure despite the length of time he had put into developing the technique, for once sealed within it the spellcaster was bound to the confines of the coffin for the length of their recuperation.

"It seemed Andro Sphinx is trying to reinvigorate Mahad's body before striking out at us again. We can use this to our advantage." I noted with the beginnings of a smirk. "While Dark Renewal is in effect Andro Sphinx will be trapped inside the coffin." I closed down the Duel Disk display and flipped over the implication in my mind as if it were a card. "That means he'll have chosen somewhere dark and disused to hide it; somewhere that it will not be found by priests or servants."

Shimon scratched his chin thoughtfully as though considering it a riddle. "There are several cellars that don't see much use in the kitchens, the old temple catacombs, empty servant quarters, perhaps even an especially shady stable stall." He mused.

All of them were good suggestions, and perfect places to hide the magical sarcophagus.

"Arrange for those places to be searched. Have the guards turn over every dark and quiet place in the palace." I stepped down from my throne, crossing towards a brazier held ensconced to the throne room wall. "Kaiba and I shall begin with the catacom-" I reached upwards to pry the torch free from its holding but the lingering cold in my fingers stopped them closing as quickly as I bid them and the torch fell from my grip to scatter hot coals over the floor. A flash of red hot pain smarted my forearm.

"Argh!"

"My Pharaoh!" Shimon exclaimed, running stiffly toward me as I held my arm with my other hand and checked the damage. Kaiba's boots charged nosily across the floor to my side and in my peripheral vision I saw his long legs lash at the spilled coals to stamp them out as Shimon inspected my burn. It was bright red but small and had been quick, the shock of it prompting my reaction more than the pain itself and leaving my arm with the residual tremble of adrenaline.

"It's not too bad." Shimon concluded as he turned my limb this way and that. "A little ointment will do it a world of good."

I nodded, one eye closed against the raw stinging sensation as Kaiba fished his assault on the coals and took a quick look at it from over Shimon's shoulder. He scowled as I caught him checking up on me and rebelliously crossed his arms, which only amused me despite the situation. It distracted me as Shimon's much warmer hands clasped my own, inspecting them for a moment before look back up into my face.

"Pharaoh." Priest Shimon began sternly. It was the sort of tone I'd heard him take when he was about to give my Father unyielding and sagely council that he didn't wish to hear. "You would be better served by following the advice you gave Isis." I couldn't escape his deep gaze as he held my eyes with it and for the first time I saw an echo, of not Shimon, or Solomon Muto, but Yugi, who resembled his Grandfather so much. Those gentle purple eyes filled with concern dried up any rebuttal I had before there was time to think of one. "I will have the guards search the catacombs and everywhere else of merit." He insisted, "You must recover your own strength."

Perhaps he was right.

Even if I ignored my own limits, I still had to consider that no matter how hard I pushed myself Kaiba would follow suit, if only to prove he could. Running us both into the ground was a distinct possibility unless I tempered my instincts.

Shimon didn't relent until I finally blinked, agreeing to him and Yugi's eyes with a soft "Aha", as though I could have ever defied them.

His eyes twinkled as he smiled at me and fondly patted me twice on the hand. "Very good." With that all in place Shimon bowed to me. "Then excuse me, I shall get underway." He ambled out of the throne room with purpose and I sighed at the knowledge that I had just been bested by a master.

"That's it? You're just gonna do what he says?" Kaiba quipped in my priest's absence.

My simple reply of "Yes, I am." made Kaiba grunt in protest, but otherwise he didn't press the issue.

Few in the palace were as long-lived or as astute as Shimon. The priest was experienced in the handling of Pharaohs and shrewdly managed to often find a way to bring them around to his manner of thinking, no matter how long the endeavor took. On this occasion it was more prudent to simply agree to his terms and trust the palace guard would be up to the task of finding Andro Sphinx's casket.

"Beyond lending four more eyes to the hunt there's little difference that we can make." The reasoning was sound and practical. I suspected that Kaiba agreed though his pride would forbid him from admitting it as all he offered in reply was a huff and a sardonic remark.

"Guess there's gonna be an intermission before round two."

"It seems so." I reluctantly confirmed.

Kaiba was a warrior through and through, ever eager for battle. It surprised me therefore when on this occasion he merely hitched his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. If even Kaiba wasn't champing at the bit for his next duel then that seemed to infer that Shimon's suggestion was indeed the correct course of action, for both of us.

"How long will Dark Renewal last for?" He took hold of my arm and turned it around to get a good look at my burn as he asked his question. The pain was easy to bare by now, until something possessed him to prod the inflamed area with his thumb and I snatched it out of his hand.

I rubbed at the sore spot and sheltered it away from his bodily incursion as I answered him. "Given the state of Mahad's body, a day. Perhaps two."

"Hnh." Kaiba's eyes flicked around the throne room for a moment, trailing up the columns and obelisks to the ceiling above. "He was an idiot to bring us back here. Our side has all the advantages."

At a first glance he was correct, but I believed there was more at work here than just what we'd seen.

"Tell me," I turned to Kaiba and he to me at the serious tone of my voice. "Have you noticed a white bird following us?"

Kaiba's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why?" He demanded, side-stepping the question. "And if you tell me it's a sign from one of your gods I'm gonna mock you."

I glared mildly at him for his that disrespectful deadpan taunt and received only a smirk in response. Finally he gave in under my glower and rolled his eyes before answering my question with his typical surliness.

"Yes, I've seen a white bird."

"Then it's as I suspected." I drew my conclusion, feeling the pieces of it snap into place in my mind with victorious satisfaction. Magical Pigeon had been the face down card on Anubis's side of the field. It'd been there since the duel's start and likely he'd been using the form to follow us ever since. "We're here, because Andro Sphinx wants us to be here." Kaiba's eyes cut to mine, awaiting an explanation. "He's been watching us, leading us, never once striking a decisive blow against us, despite appearances to the contrary." I elaborated.

"Tch. That sounds needlessly dramatic." Kaiba grunted, "Why bother?"

"The most terrible part of necromancy and the reason it was outlawed, is that once called back from the dead the servant is powerless to defy the will of the sorcerer who raised them." I recalled for him, trying to give explain the context for my theory for someone who was not familiar with the magics of this land. "If this person is one such unwilling soul he would be unable to outright defy Anubis's wishes -"

"-So he's trying to circumvent them instead." Kaiba interrupted simply. I nodded. Kaiba was neither trained in or receptive to magic but for someone so obstinately anchored in the modern world he seemed to grasp the concepts of my time with remarkable ease.

"Exactly."

"And you think he's gonna do that by what – trapping himself in here?" There was a scowl on Kaiba's face but it hid contemplation instead of reflecting genuine anger. "I don't follow the logic."

"Nor do I." I admitted. "But I trust he will reappear and make his intentions known soon." Blinking slowly I turned away from him and back toward the exit Priest Shimon had departed from. "Until then we'll conserve our energy."

Kaiba shifted at my side, looking just as out of place in my palace now as he'd done when first storming into this chamber demanding a duel. It seemed as if so much had happened since then, in such a short amount of time. He looked simultaneously the same and incredibly different to me. His sleek hands were no longer only tools for commanding cards, but now also treasured objects that could be gently clasped and held and although his expression was as stoic as ever there was a veiled undercurrent of emotion I could almost sense churning beneath the surface.

"What now?"

His question made me pause in my contemplation of him.

The look he gave me was expectant, as though he thought I was now responsible for occupying his time somehow. All methods of doing so that came to mind weren't currently appropriate. We lapsed into silence as what remained of the throne room guards stared out impassively. I would have liked to have kissed him, to taste the connection between us again and re-strengthen it but while we had an audience – even an impartial one – that wasn't to be. Fortunately I could imagine an way to do so in a more private setting that would attract significantly less attention.

I stepped closer to Kaiba's body, near enough to slide my arm down the length of his longer one until our hands met and our fingers now instinctively meshed together. Practice was making perfect in this. I then pulled on him, taking a step backwards to lead him out of the throne room.

"Come with me."

Now that there was nothing more to be done my earlier fantasy held new merit.


	28. Chapter 28

**AN:** The rating of this story has now been upgraded to M and will contain mature content moving forward.

* * *

**Atem**

Isis's departure couldn't have been more than a few minutes before our own. The slender lead made the bustle and swiftness of my servants even more impressive as they moved from place to place, already busy with the preparation of the royal bath.

They diligently went about their tasks, only briefly stopping to bow as Kaiba and I crossed outside into the royal family's private courtyard and paused there to give the servants free roam and the space to go about their duties.

Carved in the shape of a giant cross the royal bath was a sight to behold. Father, Mother and I once bathed here together every morning and evening. It was a ritual, a normalcy of our family, one that I missed without them now that I could remember it well enough to do so. It was a symbol of our family's closeness that had been reaffirmed each sunrise and sunset. Though it was rare even my Uncle had been known to join the three of us on occasion and I supposed if we'd have known of Seto's lineage from the beginning he would have grown up sharing in this space too instead of bathing in the communal baths of the priesthood.

Many fond moments from my childhood had happened here. There had been water fights and contests of holding my breath with Father and singing songs to the Gods with Mother as she washed my hair. Those precious moments were made both familiar by memories of my life and strange by my time as the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle, alone and disconnected from my family.

The bath's rim was a wall of stone reaching up to my knee that made it appear shallow at first glance, barely more than a wading pool, but inside of those walls a deep well had been carved and filed with crystal clear water that colored slightly green to the naked eye. Two levels around the inside acted as in-built stone seating. The first was deep enough to accommodate my father's height and the second of the two levels was shallower, carved into the walls of the bath at my mother's command when I was a child so I could join them as they bathed without fear of slipping down under the water. Neither of my parents would ever have allowed something like that to happen, but my mother was boundlessly fierce in her love even though she was of poor health.

To Yugi bathing had simply been part of his routine and never anything more than that, but now that I was myself again I felt very differently about the matter. To me there was nothing in the world better than a hot bath in the open air with my loved ones. There was a sacred and divine peace to being held embraced by the sun, the water and breeze all at the same time.

Though open air the structure didn't leave its bathers to the mercy of the Egyptian sun; a fact I was sure Kaiba would be glad for if I was indeed able to coax him into joining me. The innermost points of the pool's cross shaped walls were flanked by four thick pillars, painted in tones of forest green, mustard yellow and a ruddy red that had begun to fade over the years before either of the other two colors. The bases of each of these pillars were lined with hieroglyphs and incantations to promote relaxation and good health, while the top of them each held up a corner of a great stone scaffolding that ran across the heads of those in the pool beneath. Carved and painted into it was the history of my family, pictures of my ancestors in various states of victory - a scene of my great grandfather hunting hippopotamuses, his father winning battles and chariot races and their grandfather being visited by the Gods.

My servants moved fluidly across the space, quietly placing down bowls of dried figs and honey on the golden lip that lined the wall of the bath. It was inlaid with stripes of flawless ivory and gleaming lapis lazuli that complemented the bright blue glaze of the ceramic vessels. Mana often teased me for preferring the food of commoners to the various delicacies expected to best please a Pharaoh's tongue, but sweet dried figs were an exception.

A servant girl of about my age and Téa's shape who I knew to be one of Shimon's favorite chambermaids was scattering the heads and petals of blue and white lotus flowers onto the surface of the water while a stronger, heavily muscled manservant ferried freshly fired rocks from the courtyard's kiln to the pool and cast them into the depths to quickly heat the bath to a temperature just short of steaming. An older servant who wore the leather apron of one of the healing chamber attendants moved around the lip of the bath in slow and steady strides, placing down ceramic jars of creams, balms and mints. The smell of freshly lit Kyphi danced on the wind as yet more vassals moved around the area, placing down piles of clean linen, pouring wine from pitchers and setting out a large jug of the beer that Seto was partial to and the clay straws with which to drink it.

I took a deep breath, savoring the sweet smell of my home. The rich scents of wine, saffron, cinnamon, and sandalwood breathed new life into my body as the fragrance of the Gods permeated the air and settled there like a welcoming blanket. Kaiba watched me warily as I inhaled the aroma and glanced around the grand patio, noticeably avoiding looking at any of the passing female servants whose simple dresses exposed their breasts with a flushed scowl of embarrassment. I chuckled at him, which made him shoot his grimace at me instead.

What he'd seen in the visions of Call of the Haunted seemed to have bothered him far less than coming face to face with innocent displays of partial nudity. That curbed my warm feelings. I missed being part of another person - simply willing my thoughts and feelings into their beings so they could understand me and my emotions. Not for the first time I felt stifled by the singularity of my body, of being unable to just share my intent directly with another. I wanted to address my past actions with Kaiba, I realized, to have him know my feelings, but I wasn't sure how best to talk about what we had seen in the canyon properly.

"I'm sorry you had to see that." I tried. My words were quiet and burdened with a heavy weight. Did Kaiba now think less of me since witnessing my past? His respect was something precious and prickly, made all the more valuable for its innate fragility. I wondered what he thought, now that he knew I was less than the paragon I wished him to see me as. Did he now think of me as a hypocrite, and was I? Self-doubt had no place in the hearts of anyone wanting to do battle against Seto Kaiba, a fact he may well choose to remind me of if given an opening to do so.

"Tch! Then tell them to put on more clothes." Kaiba snapped, flushing slightly and steadfastly glaring off at a wholly unremarkable wall, away from my servants as they went about their duties.

"Not that." I sighed. Kaiba shifted uncomfortably at my side, dragging his eyes away from the safety of palace stone and risking seeing something unwanted as he glanced back to my face and studied it. "I'm talking about the spirits that Call of the Haunted summoned."

I could feel his eyes on my face as Kaiba analyzed me. He crossed his arms with a toneless reply of "Andro Sphinx was using them as a distraction, and it worked. There was a pause, an interlude created as an opportunity for me to reply but I couldn't think of anything to say. Making excuses or justifying my actions only dishonored the dead. "It's not like you to fall for such an amateur trick." Kaiba added, though his voice remained largely free of sarcasm or contempt, as if he was merely making a note of it.

A second silence elapsed between us and as Kaiba pulled open his coat to pursue lighting a new cigarette it occurred to me that I was beginning to understand the mannerism. Like his subtle movements, innocuous noises and flippant emotions this new habit also had a function. It seemed to be a defense against things Kaiba didn't know how to face head on. I understood his reticence, too well. What was the correct reaction to watching a valued opponent sentence innocent people to their deaths?

"Distraction or not, they're still dead because of me." I admitted, quietly.

As were many others. When I'd first emerged from the Millennium Puzzle in Yugi's time I recalled a rage and wrath, but couldn't remember what fueled it or why. Yugi's various aggressors had become a welcome outlet to those vengeful feelings and being 'merciful' had been the least of my concerns. Looking back on it now with the benefit of my memories I'd reconciled with the fact that some of the infractions against him I'd punished justly, but others I had not.

"It's not like it matters." Kaiba countered nonchalantly. "That's not a 'new' behavior."

I glanced at him sharply, demanding he explain himself even as I already suspected what he would say next. Kaiba was a diligent adversary. I doubted much of my past had remained hidden from his scrutiny while he searched for ways to get the upper hand over me.

"You can't honestly believe that I don't know about all the crazy people you left babbling around Domino. Or that Yakuza stunt you pulled on the escaped convict that held up a Burger World." His voice and features were both bathed in a coarse stoicism. I couldn't read the intent behind his words but I suspected he was trying to anger me to some end. Yugi and his gentle nature would never had allowed such an attempt to stir my temper, but Yugi wasn't here to breathe calmness into me. "Call them 'penalty games' or whatever nonsense you want" Kaiba pressed, "It doesn't change what you did."

I scowled at him as he distracted himself with his lighter. Of all the people surrounding me Kaiba knew better than most how easy it was to be swallowed whole by darker instincts. Perhaps that was what prompted him to speak his next words.

He captured his cigarette between his lips and lit it. "You think I've never killed someone?" The question settled into the air with the softness of a stone. Only now was their any hint of accusation in his voice. He made it sound like I was threatening his credibility. There was no need for it. I knew full well that Kaiba had been capable of murder in the past. Likely with a gun, or some other modern tool to make the act as efficient and impersonal as it could be. However, from what I had observed Kaiba was more partial to threatening death than delivering it.

"I've known you to bluff about the deadliness of your creations in the past." I noted as I raised my eyebrow and stared him down. His expression turned into a probing glower.

"You got any proof to back up all that hot air?" He replied, breathing out a mouthful of smoke to mix into the sweet smell of incense and turn the aroma slightly sour.

"I do." It was an insight that Yugi had stumbled upon while studying for one of his school exams. "In Death-T you sentenced us to the Electric Chair Ride, boasting the lethality of it's 'one million volts.'" I began, trying to recount exactly how Yugi had explained the concept to me. As the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle I would've been able to share Yugi's understanding of the concept, but I no longer had the benefit of being able to refer to his knowledge.

"And?" Kaiba prompted, sounding bored and disinterested.

"And someone with your technical abilities would know that volts mean nothing. The amperage decides the deadliness of electricity, not the voltage." I concluded. I believed that was accurate but couldn't remember the information. Not precisely. The realization that I couldn't recall it perfectly washed over me like a tide of ocean water, coating my skin in a salt of dread that itched and irritated me.

Forgetting things over time wasn't abnormal, but if I'd begun to forget this then had I begun to forget other things too? Were there other fragments of conversations that had already slipped away without me noticing? Would others continue to do so as my afterlife stretched onward? Eternity was a long time. Was it so long that it would slowly erode away each of my memories of my time in Yugi's world? Until none remained?

I felt as though I'd just noticed a stray thread dangling loose in the tapestry of my mind and now that I knew it was there dreaded that it was just the first precursor to some great unraveling.

No. That wouldn't happen.

Yugi was – had been - my closest confidante. Forgetting his words or his friendship wasn't an option and I wouldn't allow it. Nor those of any of my friends. I'd hold onto each of those memories tightly, no matter what.

With a derisive scoff the part of Yugi's world most stubbornly determined to linger spoke again.

"Try explaining all that to anyone in the palace." Kaiba snarked, before adding "I'll wait." In sarcastic mockery.

Kaiba's poor humor had a point. A Pharaoh of Egypt shouldn't know anything of electricity.

"At least that version of you made it quick." Kaiba huffed with finality, returning to the previous topic while exhaling a burst of smoke that drifted lazily in the air. He watched the tongue of vapor disperse into the sky before sneering nastily. "Being insane or a drooling vegetable for the rest of your life is much worse than death."

"What?" I demanded. The backhanded comment took me by surprised, as though Kaiba had struck out against my life points directly without warning. Our eyes narrowed at each other with the promise of some otherwise unfinished business as his expression riled me.

"Death denies people the chance to change." I firmly contested.

I could tell I'd fallen into some verbal snare as Kaiba smirked triumphantly, as though he was about to summon one of his Blue-Eyes White Dragon's onto the field. "It sure does." He agreed, pointedly locking his eyes with mine. I frowned, realizing as he intended for me to the innate hypocrisy in those words. Death denied the chance for improvement and atonement, yet to Kaiba's condescending point it was exactly the state I was most willing to perpetuate myself in, to his narrow-minded way of thinking.

My irritation abated as Kaiba's victorious smirk lessened into an expression as close to honest curiosity as I'd ever seen on his face. "Is that why you're so determined to stick around here, instead of trying to cut it in the real world? Because your afraid of changing?" The bright blue of his eyes was as piercing and intense as ever but his tone was utterly bland. I couldn't recall if Kaiba had ever asked me something so bluntly before.

If Kaiba was going to reign in his temper and be straightforward without bursting into angry shouts or storming away then I wanted to return the sentiment and give him an honest answer, but in this moment I didn't know what that answer was. "I'm not afraid." I parried back, feeling the need to say that without knowing why. Even if I had been 'afraid', it would have been natural to feel that way. I'd only just regained my memories, my name and my identity. Was it cowardly to want to preserve those things just the way they were instead of instantly setting to work on altering them? No. There was something more to it. Something I didn't want to confront. I could feel it prowling around in the shadows on my mind waiting to pounce on me with comprehension.

Kaiba's eyes darted around my face as I was rendered silent by my own sudden pensiveness.

"It's fine." He concluded, before gruffly adding as though it was intended to appease me. "People don't change. Not unless they have to."

That wasn't true.

Yugi had changed. He'd grown in confidence and courage into an indomitable force of good and kindness. Joey had as well. His boundless energy and enthusiasm had carried him from a novice to being one of the toughest duelists in Japan in such a short amount of time. Even despite his belief to the contrary Kaiba had changed too - and continued to do so. He was change incarnate, ever embodying all of the destruction, creation and chaos it demanded. Seemingly he had both an endless capacity and an unlimited potential for change and once he was away from this place I didn't doubt he would continue to do so.

It stung like the scratch of a cat to realize I envied him for that, and I was able to place the feeling I didn't want to face. It wasn't that I was afraid to change, it was that I feared I was no longer able to. Yugi's friendship had changed me and because of it I'd been able to return to who I truly was, but now with that journey finished it felt like my ability to change for better or worse had come to an end. Suddenly I imagined myself to be a heavy rock in the middle of Kaiba's river, watching his rapids rush passed me toward a destination I would never see. It had never bothered me before, not for the length of time I'd spent in my afterlife, but now that I had that picture in my mind it refused to be dismissed.

"People do change. Some more than others." I settled on.

Kaiba rolled his eyes, apparently willful blind to that same character trait that I found appealing enough to be jealous of. How frustrating.

"Do you really feel that nothing has changed you?" I pressed, matching his earlier tone by making my question blunt and to the point without any inflections or inferences. "That the duelist before me today could just as easily build another Death-T tomorrow?"

"I can - whenever I want." Kaiba hissed. "And no." He crossed his arms ever more tightly across his chest. "It was an indefensible legal liability." He muttered with a sour face, saying nothing more than that on the matter.

"We've seen the worst of each other." I noted. We'd even coaxed it out of one another.

"Hnh." Kaiba grunted in reply, before rounding on me in challenge. "Don't tell me you're getting cold feet about 'us'?" He quipped smartly, pronouncing 'us' strangely like it was a new word he'd just invented.

I closed my eyes and hummed as though seriously considering it, if only to see Kaiba's arrogant expression falter slightly.

"Never." I answered with a sure smirk. After all, the advantage of seeing Kaiba at his worst was the anticipation of next seeing him at his best.

And perhaps seeing him in other new and interesting ways as well.

Using a long wooden pole with a hook on the end two of the servants worked in unison to guide a dark purple cloth of fine quality over the bath's stone scaffolding and secured it to create a shield against the sun. With it in place and a final heated stone plunged into the water I judged the bath to ready. I squeezed Kaiba's hand covertly with my own and made my way across the courtyard to test it.

Decorative urns, tall potted ferns and four stone benches lined with plump pillows made L-shaped seating areas around the bath for those wishing to cool off or dry themselves. Kaiba followed behind me and made his way over to the nearest one, swiping away a cushion as he lowered himself to sit on the seat. His arms and legs crossed in a smooth well-practiced motion to create a series of sharp angles and strong lines.

"So did you really dragged me out here just to watch you take a bath?" He deadpanned, his eyes watching my movements carefully as I teased away the sandals from my feet and allowed the stone stairs inlaid with turquoise that glittered green in the sun to usher me up to the lip of the pool.

"No." I replied shortly as I stepped down the first of three identical stairs on the other side that vanished beneath the waterline. I paused, trying to adapt to the temperature of the water even while the stairs tempted me further, wishing to guide me down into the pool's depths. The feeling of the hot water lapping over my bare feet was heavenly, as if the sensation had been crafted by the God's themselves. I turned back to Kaiba and smirked, determined to have him in the water with me if only to see him try to smother a matching feeling of ecstasy beneath his usual surliness. I could only imagine what his expression might look like caught between two such extremes and I expected it would be funny. "I would like you to join me." I added, breathing a challenge into my tone and quirking an eyebrow at him tauntingly.

Kaiba's legs crossed slightly tighter as he unerringly stared at me. "Why?"

His tone was skeptical and his eyes narrowed with suspicion, as if the concept genuinely confused him. I'd thought the motivation to do so should have been obvious but Kaiba could be curiously dense at times. Apparently this was one of them.

I took a different approach.

"Because you smell like -" I paused for less than a second, searching for an appropriate example, "-a gaming convention." In fact the resemblance to that smell was quite uncanny now that the memory of Yugi and our friends visiting one came to mind. "That smokes." I added for completeness's sake as the harsh stench of his cigarette pinched my nose.

Kaiba paused from smoking and curled his lip to look both offended and disgusted before covering the expression up.

"Can you either stick to ye olde analogies, or modern day ones? The half and half is annoying." He complained sarcastically before taking a final huff of his cigarette and dropping it onto the floor to stamp out with his foot. No sooner did he lift his boot back up from doing so than a servant darted under his feet to retrieve the refuse with a burst of speed that made Kaiba flinch slightly and then snarl beast-like at the passing vassal.

"Fine. Then you smell like the morning after the final night of Wepet-Renpet" I easily countered with a goading shrug. "Which also smokes."

He glared down at the servant who was scrubbing the remains of his cigarette off of the stone floor tiles as she stifled a giggle. Fortunately she was unable to see his grumpy glower. Kaiba rolled his eyes and looked back to me. "Scalding, I assume." He replied in Japanese, slipping out of my language at the reminder that he'd been speaking it in the first place. His eyes warily tracked the servant girl who had laughed at him as she finished cleaning the floor and retreated backwards.

Had the request for the bath to be arranged not been so hasty these lower ranking servants would have finished their duties and vanished long before the Pharaoh's arrival so that the elite vassals named official care takers to the throne could assume their places and proceed to manicure my nails, wash my hair and disrobe me, but I wouldn't wait for them this time. Kaiba watched even the few servants that were here like he suspected they would accost him at any moment and adding any more attendants would only hinder my campaign for his company. After all, I doubted Kaiba would appreciate being catered to while in such a compromising position as a bath, or enjoy the presence of the royal musicians and entertainers.

"Leave us. Pull the drapery closed as you go." I called out to the few who remained. With dutiful bows each one put down whatever object they had been carrying or seeing to and obeyed, quietly filing out of the courtyard. With a swish of weighty fabric the thick red curtains that lined the entrances were freed from their bonds to hang heavily across the doorways, blocking them.

"The royal family is not to be disturbed while those curtains remain shut." I explained to Kaiba.

As I suspected, the tension in his shoulders lifted slightly at the promise of privacy. He looked away sharply and blushed with embarrassment as I began to undress.

My cloak was near ruined and only held in place around my neck by a makeshift knot. The purple cloth fell free of my shoulders as I untied it. I let the material fall where it pleased, similarly discarding the winged pauldron that adorned my shoulder and the necklace that hung loose over my chest. Disrobing wasn't a duty that usually fell to me and catching the tiny latches to undo the gold bands that spanned my arms and legs was delicate work. With the promise of a warm bath so imminent I had no patience for such trivialities and so ignored the sum of my jewelry. Instead I unclasped the thick band of gold around my waist and pulled my robe free over my head before tossing it aside to join the remains of my vestments. Atop the lip of the bath I placed my Duel Disk and the Millennium Puzzle, making sure it and the soul it harbored remained within arm's reach.

If Seto was here he would no doubt chide me for my impatience; for disrobing myself and for denying the royal servitors the chance to perform their duties. I hoped he would wake soon as I stepped down to immerse myself in the bath water.

As my father's son I was reluctant to admit that at times I found the more economic and less interesting aspects of being a Pharaoh... trite. By Seto's account I 'shied away from such duties like an ill-trained donkey'. He often used the routinely schedule of my morning and evening baths as an opportunity to ambush me - when he knew full well I had no obvious or dignified avenues of escape - and coerce me into attending to the most pressing matters of the day, or demand answers to otherwise dull affairs of statecraft that I'd been procrastinating from addressing. He was the only person brazen enough to willfully ignore the privacy partition, if only so he could corner me and vent his frustrations with the 'lackadaisical' speed of my work. Though unconventional his method did indeed ensure that I attended to my duties on time and with the departure of Mother and Father I enjoyed the intrusion. My baths would otherwise lack any company at all without his presence and the lonesomeness was unsettling, I now found.

Being here, just freshly submerged in the warm water with my eyes closed and on the cusp of relaxing stirred a note of paranoia that Seto would sweep in passed the curtain at any minute and demand I see to some neglected papyrus or review the approval of a new law.

I wondered what he would think of Kaiba and I?

I'd have to ask him once he was well again and regained consciousness. With that concluded I poured out a cup of blood-colored wine and leaned back, enjoying the taste of pomegranate and grapes as the water lapped at my skin and cleaned my wounds. They'd stung as I lowered myself into one of the pool's carved seats and the skin surrounding the burn on my arm felt sore and tight but not enough to cause outright pain or drive me out of the bath. Wounds healed rapidly in the afterlife. With a bit of balm and a restorative rest not much more would be needed to mend the sensitive areas.

After half of minute of glorious relaxation a rebellious "Tch!" cut through the peace. I opened my eyes as I heard the familiar leathery sound that the material of Kaiba's coat made when he shifted. He'd already freed one arm from the white garb and glared at me point blank as he noticed me looking.

"I'm getting in. Because_ I_ want to." He emphasized, fixing me with a leer that told me not to dare contradicting him.

"Of course."

He only grunted in reply to my taunting agreement, but continued to undress.

With several arcs of his arm he folded his white coat into a neat square and place it onto the bench, positioning it on a portion of the seat shaded by the shadows of a sweeping blue awning. Kaiba's boots soon followed, taking a concerted amount of effort to yank free of the length of his legs before he slid across the floor and tucked them under the shady bench. The mechanical motions of neatly tidying his garb away and arranging his shoes side by side, they were familiar. Telling Kaiba this wasn't worth the trouble, but his habit was the same as my High Priest's.

"Are you just gonna keep staring at me?" Kaiba huffed without looking up as he turned his attention to removing his Duel Disk and undoing his bracers.

I shrugged in the picture of feigned apathy, the water embracing my shoulders rippling slightly at the gesture. "I'm curious."

My High Priest and Kaiba were similar in many ways but they weren't without their own deviations. I wanted to see how many more differences I would find between the two of them when Kaiba's body was bared to me.

For a moment Kaiba only stood utterly still. His lips drew together and his eyes narrowed at nothing. In those few seconds he looked unsure and irritated but quickly recovered with a defiant scowl. His belt was hastily discarded and Kaiba unzipped the length of his suit in a rush, the material reluctant to be pried away from his sweaty skin. With gritted teeth he peeled it free from his neck and left shoulder to reveal a long and straight scar across the joint. No doubt a token of the surgery Kaiba had mentioned earlier in passing. What I hadn't known to expect was the lasting imprint of a series of strange circular scars that trailed upward from his wrist and dotted the base of his neck around the sides. They were few and far between, only numbering three on his forearm and two on his neck but the irregularity of their placement and discoloration made them stand out against the paleness of his skin.

My brow pinched as I frowned at Kaiba's scars, ignoring the glare of warning he threw at me in my peripheral vision.

They looked like burns.

"From a cigar." Kaiba sneered, making the announcement as he denied eye-contact with me and scoffed.

He didn't need to say more than that. Anger pricked me and even the relaxing aroma of incense and warm water couldn't keep it at bay. How was it that despite being born into the world thousands of years into the future that Kaiba's upbringing had been harsher than that of Seto's own?

Kaiba snatched the other half of his suit away from his right shoulder to reveal another pair of cigar burns peppering the flesh above his right wrist, but this time they weren't alone.

"You don't get to know about this one." Kaiba cautioned me with a growl. He pulled his right arm slightly behind his body to faintly block my view of a large, jagged horseshoe-shaped scar carved into the meat of his inner forearm as he folded up the black suit and placed it with his coat.

I nodded wordlessly, agreeing to his terms.

My prior eagerness to see Kaiba's exposed skin was now tempered, even as his abdomen and legs were revealed to be unmarred beyond the wounds he'd acquired during his time in my afterlife.

He stood awkwardly, wearing only a pair of skin-tight black boxer briefs with the KaibaCorp logo on the waistband.

As expected, Kaiba's body was long, thin and powerful, pallid and strong like the coils of a great white serpent. It was interesting to discover his shoulders were a little less broad than the cut of his coat would suggest and his pale skin was stretched perhaps a little too tightly over the ribs beneath his armpits. Nevertheless, he was toned and trim with well defined upper body muscles and a line of downy hair trailing south from his navel to disappear into his underwear. That was unexpected, and somehow appealing to me.

Kaiba crossed his arms over his chest again as a flush of pink stained his irritated face. His hands clenched into fists and he side-eyed his empty clothes as though seriously debating climbing back into them before the bridge of his nose crinkled. He sniffed the air around him twice and muttering something about 'gaming conventions' before squaring his shoulders and marching toward the pool with stoic determination. His long legs needed only to ascend the first stair until he could step onto the submerged stone steps on the other side. The water parted as he lowered himself into the bath opposite me, hissing through his teeth like an angry snake as the water lapped into his various cuts and wounds.

**Kaiba**

Baths weren't my thing.

The idea of sitting around and stewing in my own discarded filth was disgusting. Despite that after spending so long running around the desert being almost fully immersed in clean hot water had its charms. I hissed getting in as all of my cuts stung under the waterline but with every second that passed by each of my aching muscles went from feeling like steel spikes to warm rubber. As soon as the discomfort went away I rubbed down my arms and legs to get the grit and sweat off of my skin and it felt like I was peeling off an exoskeleton I hadn't known about. This still didn't compare to the perfectly pressurized spray of a hot shower, but it was better than nothing.

I didn't get 'home sick' but I missed my mansion just for the showers. When I was Mokuba's age the shower in my en suite had been the only place Gozaburo ever gave me any damn privacy in so I'd gotten into the habit of making each one as long as possible. Like hell Gozaburo had let that last though. After the fun little incident that gave me the scar Atem had non-verbally agreed not to ask about I got cut back to only four minute allotments of unsupervised time in the washroom and when they were up some goon would barge down the door and drag me out, no matter what I'd been doing.

Pleasant memories.

We sat and soaked without saying anything for at least five minutes. I didn't want to talk about my damage, or anything else. The Pharaoh seemed to get that.

I doubted this was the sort of fun pool party he'd been imagining when he told me to join him but he seemed to be enjoying himself anyway. He reclined backwards with his eyes closed as obnoxious flowers floated around us, lifting his arm up every once in a while to drink something that looked a lot like wine or snag a piece of fruit from a nearby bowl. Atem looked completely calm. Calmer than I'd ever seen him before outside of being unconscious. The waterline bobbed up and down his chest as he slowly breathed in and out, filling the hollows of his collar bones and riding up the base of his neck. It was unbelievable he could be so relaxed after appearing that formidable as he'd undressed in front of me.

I'd already known to expect the toned bronze skin from that involuntary peep show back at the lake and I'd unwillingly got a good look at the outline of his body while he'd been walking around in clingy wet clothes for the while after. What I hadn't been expecting was exactly how powerful he looked almost naked. He'd left all the obnoxious jewelry on apart from a necklace and the Puzzle and stood confidently over the pool like Adonis, or some other fantastical mythological figure. Somehow he was muscular and masculine despite his small stature, dripping with an ease and pride even while stripped that felt almost primal.

The bastard made being clothesless look easy, like he'd been designed to make me feel inferior.

It's not as if there weren't any flaws though. He had a few cuts and bruises from this stupid misadventure and there was a smattering of dark stubble pooling in his armpits from obviously not keeping up with his apparently full-body shaving routine. His nipples were a lot darker than I'd have guessed and a humiliating gnaw of physical arousal shot through my body as my brain unhelpfully re-rendered them with perfect clarity at the front of my mind. The timing wasn't great. It was logical - he was ninety-six percent naked in front of me right now - but not great. It didn't help that the regal tone he'd used to order his servants and priests around with was apparently a huge turn on for reasons unknown. I'd never understood before what made me tick beyond basic physical stimulation, now there was suddenly too many things and the number was growing by the moment. Watching the way he moved and smirked when he dueled, or the commanding tone of voice he used to boss people about with targeted something inside of me. Even the demanding way he kissed and smugly taunted me had its appeal.

He distracted me from my cataloguing as he placed his cup back onto the side of the pool, swallowed down another piece of fruit and nonchalantly crossed the bath to sit next to me with a bowl of something in his hand. The water ran down all the shallow dips and muscular lines of his body in a way that made my mouth feel dry as he'd stood up to make his way over to my side and I had to look away from him to keep it together.

Oh.

Doing something along those lines was probably what he'd had on his mind when he'd lured me into the pool. Dammit it. The mood was now gone no thanks to Gozaburo and his fucking cigars.

"Kaiba." Atem called my name so I turned back to him and suppressed the pathetic urge to flinch nonsensically as one of his hands landed on my face.

I must have been clenching my jaw. It eased up a bit as he stroked a finger over the cut on my cheek, leaving behind a trail of something wet and tacky in the process. I slapped his hand away and wiped off the weird substance, holding the goop between my finger and thumb. It was amber, and familiar. But it belonged in beehives, not my face.

"Why are you smearing honey on me?" I demanded with a justified amount of suspicion.

Atem smirked. His eyes and gold bangles flashed in the sunlight, and even I couldn't tell which shone brighter. He wasn't deterred by having his hand thrown off. He just scooped up even more on his fingers from the bowl in his hand.

"The healers use it to dress wounds." The water sloshed as he sidled back up to me and went right back to what he'd been doing, coating all my little scratches and scrapes with it.

I closed my eyes and just let him have his way. I guess I owed him that after accidentally sabotaging whatever else he'd had planned.

Leaving so much sugar to sit on my skin sounded like an outbreak waiting to happen, but there was something soothing about the strokes and the feel of his fingers. Between them and the steaming water I was too mellowed to bother trying to fight him off. It wasn't worth the effort.

He moved down my body and away from my face to my upper arm, working it onto one of the cuts he'd given me with Excalibur out in the forest before looping back up and massaging some of it into the surgical wound on my shoulder.

"And to fade scars." He added.

I opened my eyes just enough to glare at him as he pulled up my forearm out of the water and traced a layer of it over the U-shaped scar.

He was pushing his luck.

Luckily for him he seemed to get that. With grunt he nodded at me and let go, leaning forward to nuzzle his nose against mine like an over affectionate pet before backing off to open up a foot of space between us in the water. "Let it sit for a few minutes." He commanded and then started on his own body, lathering up the grazes on his elbows and the slice on his face before standing up in the bath with a flex of his legs so he could rub the rest into a scuff on his knee and what was left of the wound on his side.

The triangle of linen he was wearing as a loincloth clearly wasn't made to double as a bathing suit. I could see the outline of everything as he stood up and it plastered itself to his wet skin.

"Why are you even bothering with that?" I questioned, jabbing a finger towards his underwear.

Atem glanced downwards before lowering himself to perch on the edge of the pool like a demented bird, I guessed to let the honey do its thing. "You're wearing yours." He commented as his eyes trailed down to my briefs under the water.

"Tch." I crossed my legs, hating that I was so predictable to him.

I'd rather have them on than go freeballing it in a semi-public open air bath. Now they were soaked though and I'd probably have to leave them out overnight to dry, so long as it didn't get too humid.

Atem's servants had hung a canopy over the bath. It was thick enough to blot out some of the sunlight but thin enough to see the clouds through. I eyed them to get a read on the weather. I was no meteorologist but up in the air clouds equaled turbulence so knowing how to read them was a basic aviation practice that kept pilots away from any unwanted hazards. Some cirrus clouds were hanging far up in the troposhere and below them a swarm of puffed up cumulus clouds were floating by. Ultimately they meant fair weather for the intimidate future. That suited my purposes.

If Mokuba was here the conditions would have been ideal for the cloud gazing game we used to play. It'd been a few years but we could do that when I got back, if he wanted to. I was gonna owe him a big chuck of leisure time to make up for getting caught in this mess and being away for days on end.

Years ago, before the events of Death-T that the Pharaoh suddenly seemed so determined to bring up, I would have seen just hanging out as a massive waste of my valuable time. Now sitting down with Mokuba, watching some movies and playing video games sounded like a vacation. The market had been flooded with a lot of co-op games recently, catching up on those would make for good entertainment and we could get in some competitor analysis at the same time. Anything besides team games and Mokuba tended to get frustrated because I never let him win. If he wanted to beat me then he had to earn it and we both knew that wasn't going to happen. Mokuba liked games but he didn't have that drive, that need to win. Not like me and the half-naked dolt next to me covertly trying to lick honey off his fingers without being noticed.

"You wanna play a game?"

I ignored the way his pink tongue darted back into his mouth after curling around his thumb, or I thought I did.

To Atem it probably seemed like I was asking out of blue in more ways than one, but I was going to bet the King of Games wouldn't disappoint me anyway.

He watched me for a few seconds like he was sizing me up, so I stared right back. With a hum of amusement he accepted my challenge, casually leaning backwards even while everything about his face became less relaxed and more focused. "What's the game, Kaiba?"

I pointed upwards towards the sky and the thick cottony clouds that were lazing around up there. "Cloud gazing."

He perked an eyebrow at me.

"Choose a cloud. You get a point if you say it looks like an animal and the other person can't beat the resemblance with something else." It was hardly the most challenging game in the world, but it didn't take any pieces or a game board to play. Mokuba and I had gotten a lot of mileage out of it as kids just for that reason.

Atem smirked and despite how that expression usually went with him trying to piss me off it sent my pulse skyrocketing. Making people 'happy' wasn't my modus operandi and I wasn't hardwired for it, but every time I managed to drag one of his little grins of a stupidly deep laugh out his mouth it was like a jolt from Domino's electrical grid.

He closed his eyes slightly, the lack of light darkening his irises to the color of his wine and quirked his eyebrow. "Even cloud gazing is a competition to you?" It sounded like a taunt but his tone was lukewarm which made it softer somehow.

"Everything's a competition." I countered.

"Alright then." The small grin he launched my way hit my heart rate like a nuclear warhead. "I'll go first." He declared with so much confidence he must have been using up at least half of his nation's quota of it.

Atem blinked slowly and turned his head upwards to find a worthy candidate to represent him as his champion. He surveyed the sky like he owned it and maybe the Pharaoh did in his culture. The sunlight across the water reflected across his sharp jawline as his eyes darted around the clouds with that look of ultimate intent that he should trademark.

"That one." He selected, pointing up into the atmosphere. "It looks like a hyena."

Yeah, it had better be the most hyena-ish looking cloud ever to have existed for me to actually pick it out. With him sat on the edge of the pool and me still in it we were sat at different heights and looking at the sky from slightly different angles so 'that one' was just about as useless a direction as they came.

Between a cloud that looked like one of Mokuba's Capsule Monsters and another that looked like a Kuriboh with a knife stabbed into it I came up empty.

"Where?" I got up out of the water and sat down beside him.

He shifted over slightly so I could get closer to his center mass and properly follow the line of his finger upward with my eyes. It bought us a lot closer than I'd intended and I was going to blame my shiver on the temperature difference between the pool and the Egyptian air.

My face was right up against his and I was almost hovering over one side of his body, but I got a look at his 'hyena'.

"Looks more like a bear to me." I scoffed, almost directly into his ear. He inhaled quietly through his teeth but this close to him I heard it all the same.

"A bear's tail is shorter. It's definitely a hyena." Atem contested smoothly, turning his head slightly toward mine as he argued so that we were almost cheek to cheek and I could see the way his eyes blazed in way too many scarlet and crimson tones to be natural. "Look at the curvature of its spine." He traced the angle of his cloud's back, right down to the tip of its tail.

I wasn't convinced by his spine argument but I had to hand it to him that the tail was too long to be a bear, unless that bear had a fifth leg.

"Hnh. Fine. It's a hyena."

"My point." He concluded triumphantly like the haughty bastard he was.

I side-eyed his goading grin and tried to find something that would beat his mutant hyena.

The Kuriboh with a knife stabbed through it had smudged a little in the sky. Its body had stretched out into a more oblong shape that narrowed into a long neck with a lump on the end and the little pointed trails of wispy cloud were pulling away from the rest of the knife to look a bit like a bat's wing.

"See that." I pointed at it. It was a sad excuse of a dragon but it would do. "It's a dragon, with its tail coiled around its body."

Atem leaning his face against my shoulder so he could look directly up the line of my arm, then he pulled back and threw me the smuggest smirk I'd ever seen – and that was saying something.

"Kaiba," He drawled, playful and taunting and mocking all at the same time as he lowered his eyelids at me, "I'm sorry to tell you this but dragons aren't animals." With a dramatic pause he stretched out in self-satisfied nonchalance. "So unless we're now including mythological creatures I'm still winning."

"Tch!" He wished! Like hell I was going to hand him that advantage!

I covered his stupid teasing face with my hand and turned it away from me which only made him snicker into my palm. His backwards culture claimed anything they could stick an inappropriate head onto was some kind of god - allowing mythological creatures would only work in his favor!

Whatever! Atem ducked away from my hand as I did a sweep of the sky. I pulled my arm back like a catapult and shot it off rapid fire. "There, that looks like a chinchilla."

Atem's head whipped around to take a look and smacked me with his earrings as I switched to point in another direction. "And that one looks like an aardvark."

Watching his head pivot around like a spinning top was amusing. I chose another innocuous looking cloud right behind him and he leaned so far backwards he was looking at it upside down in an attempt to keep up. "That's definitely a platypus."

I crossed my arms with finality threw his smug smirk back at him with one of my own. "Unless you can contest them that's three points to me, Pharaoh."

He righted himself and didn't miss a beat.

"You ass! You're choosing animals you know damn well I've never seen before so I can't challenge you!"

Between fighting back a grin and pretending to keep a straight face he looked like he was trying to swallow an egg, whole. So much for the divine dignity of the Pharaoh. The combination of his point blank accusation and scandalized expression was the best thing I'd ever seen and I threw my head back and laughed at it until my diaphragm started to ache.

"Don't be such a sore loser, Pharaoh." I mocked between breaths.

"This from the mouth of the worlds largest hypocrite!" Atem yelled, but despite shouting he couldn't hold in his own laughter anymore and it reverberated around the courtyard at exactly the same volume. I liked the sound but he was so loud I was surprised the guards hadn't come running in to see what was going on and break up the moment, or something equally dumb.

"Gumf!" I grunted in amusement as he smacked my arm and snaked his hand up it toward my head. A quick scrape of his fingers against my scalp set off fireworks as he snagged a handful of my hair and pulled our faces together.

His kiss was light but determined and tasted sweet, like summer fruit. It didn't stay that way for long. We set a new record - not that I'd been subconsciously timing our previous kisses - this one lasting long enough that I had to figure out how to breathe through it without breaking it off to inhale. Our mouths kept battling in this single kiss that kept on going and going, becoming even more assertive and domineering on both sides with each shift in angle and adjustment of our lips.

Atem's other hand was flush against my abs and I didn't know when he'd put it there, but it gave him the leverage needed to push us apart just enough break up the impromptu make out session. We got our breath back, listening to the breeze ripple through the awnings and the gurgle of the water. In a split second the Pharaoh's expression morphed into the one he got right before he called out the finishing move in a duel, and he pushed his arms against me to shove me backwards into the pool.

I resurfaced and had to cough out the petals from one of those ridiculous waterlilies or whatever they were that I managed to swallow as he stepped into the water, marched across the bath and then pulled himself against my body.

His hands gripped my shoulders as we touched noses but that wasn't enough direct contact for either of us so I smashed our mouths together again as Atem pushed me down into one of the carved out bath ledges and straddled me. I hissed at the spike of sensation as he pressed his erection against my sixty percenter in some weird new definition of dueling.

It felt like he was everywhere all at once; like he had more than the normal amount of hands or had summoned in a bunch of monsters as backup. He ran them though my hair, squeezed my biceps, hooked an arm around the back of my neck and stroked my chin with his thumb until I opened my mouth to groan and got a throatful of his tongue. I hadn't understood the appeal of slapping one tongue against another when he tried it the first time, but right now it felt damn essential so I mirrored what his was doing with mine so they could duel between our mouths.

He used the arm around my neck for leverage and my hands found his hips under the water by feel alone. I couldn't tell who'd taken the first turn or if we'd started at exactly the same time but the bath water sloshed around between us, a drop of it splashing upwards towards my eye, as we bucked against each other.

The friction was incredible. Better than incredible.

Even through our underwear I could feel his pulse throb against mine with each grinding rub of our crotches, his breaths quickly devolving into hot ragged pants that dried the water on my skin. With a muffled 'tssss' my body quaked as his mouth left mine and he ran his superheated tongue over one of the thick trails of honey he'd smeared onto my face, lapping at my skin in firm self-indulgent strokes while never once breaking the rhythm of our hips.

What was probably minutes of this felt like seconds as a charge built up between us.

It should have been annoying, but not being able to clearly see what happened under the water worked better for me. Analytically I knew we were just dry humping, probably badly, and likely looked like a pair of idiots. This way we didn't have to see each others junk, or anything else that might put me off my game.

The arm around my neck tightened and my grip on Atem's hip bones did the same.

Logically I was probably holding onto him too tightly but the biological imperative to ejaculate had been riding in the back seat for years and now that it had the car keys it was clear I'd have to pry it away from the steering wheel with a crowbar. I felt like I was going to lose my mind and go insane if it didn't happen right the hell now!

The suspense didn't last long, for either of us.

The crown on Atem's head flashed in the light as he threw his head back, opened his eyes up wide and shuddered. The yellow stalks of his hair slapped me in the face but all of that was a distant irrelevance as I ducked my head under his jaw, pressing my nose into his chest as the explosive climax made my muscles clench and twitch.

I forced my jaws shut, managing not to make a sound other than a strangled gulp at the back of my throat that sounded like a fish drowning.

Atem didn't have any of my weird conditioning not to vocalize and it figured a Pharaoh could be as loud as he damn well pleased in his own palace. The noise he made was somewhere between a soft roar and a deep chirp and so completely unique I immediately knew trying to recreate it in my hologram was going to be a hassle - if I ever got desperate enough to try programming my Pharaoh hologram to do 'that'.

Our chests buffeted against each other as we both panted and stared. That was the most intimate thing I'd ever done with another person and I felt just as dazed by it as Atem looked, but that expression didn't stick around on his face for long.

He smirked at me and we ended up lip-locked again but it wasn't as deep or demanding this time. Instead it was soft and slow, which I preferred by comparison now that I could think again. My fingers were starting to feel numb and taking a twenty minute power nap sounded perfect even though this little jaunt into fantasyland had decimated my polyphasic sleep schedule.

Atem leaned back in my lap as I pried my fingers away from his hips, looking every bit as boneless as I felt. Even his hair looked less spiky - as if someone had found a remote and dialed down the global rigidity of his character model by twenty percent. He chuckled into my mouth and I shivered as his dark knuckles brushed against my crotch to run up the trail of hair below my navel. I couldn't go again for a while but the light touch was still a turn on and I guessed he didn't want to contact to end yet. He shifted around in my lap to sit back in the seat next to me, closing is eyes and hooking his arm around my neck to pull me down until I was closer to his level and had to lean against him slightly.

It felt... nice.

His shoulders were broad for his height, enough that I could rest my head on one at this new angle and feel the warmth of his skin under my cheek and listen to the subtle tempo of his breathing. It was strong and steady, like most things about him. I hadn't realized how far I sank into the feeling until water splashed back at me as I literally sank into the bath.

I pulled myself upright now wide awake with an irritated splutter and sat back up in my seat. Atem's crimson eyes flicked open and darted around my face like he was inspecting me before he drew the conclusion of "You're tired."

No shit, Pharaoh.

"Hnh." I was caught between the dueling impulses to throw that eagle-eyed observation in his face just to remind him who he was dealing with, or leave it alone since he was right and I'd just been fantasizing about taking a nap... and almost fallen asleep in the water. "So are you." I deflected. Ultimately it didn't really matter if he noticed I was tired so long as he was too. That kept the score even.

Lying about it was apparently beneath him so instead he nodded shamelessly, not even bothering to try and deny it.

"Falling asleep in here without any attendants around isn't wise." Atem cautioned, looking pensive for a moment as he slowly cast his eyes around the courtyard. They lingered on my clothes, which made sense since I doubted he'd even be able to see any of his stuff after just throwing it onto the floor the way he'd done. "Let's get out. I'll find some clothes for you." He decided eventually.

"Yeah, I don't think we're the same size." I grunted. "And don't even think about giving me the other guy's clothes as a loaner." Getting back into my bloodied sweat-soaked flightsuit wasn't and appealing prospect but I'd be dead before anyone caught me wearing a dress, anything gold, or a stupid hat.

"Alright." Atem replied simply with a weary grin that I didn't like. I narrowed my eyes at him and he only shrugged in reply, wearing the same overly innocent face that Mokuba did right before he started messing with someone. He covered it up by starting to kiss me again lazily and lightly. Despite his suggestion he apparently wasn't in a hurry to get out of here if the extended make out session was any indication, but there was no way I was sticking around in the pool after what we'd just done.

"I'm not staying in this water now." I muttered between kisses.

With a hum of agreement he pulled back, grinning tiredly even though he still taunted me like he was at the top of his game. "Kaiba, you've assassinated the mood in just seven words."

"Next time I'll do it in five." I deadpanned.

Despite the comeback Atem looped his arms around my neck and pressed his nose against mine, holding it there for a long second before backing up and clambering off of the seat. He tossed a superior look over his shoulder at me as he strode up the stone stairs and out of the bath, picking up his Duel Disk and catching the cord of the Puzzle in his hand as he did so. There was a pause as he slid it back into place around his neck and waited for me to follow him.

Even knowing what was now in the water with me didn't motivate my body much. It took a lot of effort to gather up my legs and force my muscles to work again.

From the side of the pool Atem pulled out a rectangular piece of linen from a pile and tossed it to me as I stood up in the water. I caught it easily even as I staggered in place. Vertigo and lightheadedness from the hot water and lack of proper nutrition or hydration jumped me. I could feel him watching me as I stood there until my head stopped swimming and then held out what Atem had thrown at me over my body. The cut was simple but the fabric itself was soft and pleated. That was the only clue I had that it wasn't a towel.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" I glanced over at the Pharaoh. He might as well have handed me a bunch of jigs with no puzzle box and told me to reassemble the picture. "Wear it, unless you'd prefer to to be naked." He replied with a raised eyebrow.

As if I'd do that. I wasn't going to walk around in just my skin with all my damage showing.

Atem was watching me with obvious amusement as he selected a matching cut, like I was entertainment for him.

"Here. Just watch me." He added as he slipped it around his body. His hands brushed against the top of his loin cloth as he passed the material diagonally around his slim hips, tugged on the fabric to pull it tight to his skin and nudged his fingers under the waist line to tuck in one end. The other end he straightened to hang free at the front.

That was stupidly simple; I could have figured it out on my own. Within seconds I copied his demonstration, tying the stupid thing around me. Technically I hadn't compromised myself; it wasn't a moronic hat, gold or a dress. It was more of a skirt, or a kilt. On Atem it reached down to just above his knees. On me it was uncomfortably shorter but I was beginning to feel too exhausted to be self-conscious. Feeling that way was nonsensical anyway after everything we'd just done.

Atem nodded in approval and sauntered over to the red drapes that made this place not even remotely as private as he seemed to think and began securing them back in place.

It gave me the opening I needed to get out the bath without being watched and peel my underwear away from my body. I could manage without my briefs while they dried and there was no way I was wearing them now. Not after going off in them like an unattended fire hose. I laid them out flat in the sun next to the rest of my clothes, rearranged the pile as I grabbed my Duel Disk and turned back to find Atem was now loitering around for me by the exit with an hand on his hip.

He smiled at me as our eyes connected. It was a small, soft manipulation of his features that I hadn't ever seen before. Yet another thing to add to my hologram when I was back in the real world. At this rate it'd take months to get all the updates done.

Without another word or pausing to dry off he started back through the archway that led back into the palace corridors.

I didn't know where he was going, but I didn't care right now. I strode over to him and followed his lead anyway, our hands brushing against each other with every other step as we walked side by side.


	29. Chapter 29

**Atem**

I'd never experienced anything like that before.

My pulse quickened again at the vivid recollection of leaning my body to Kaiba's and bucking against him like a wild horse. Our intimacy had been an honest, guileless and ferocious thing. A dull heat flushed my cheeks and my brow furrowed as I carefully revised the details as though they were the prior turns of a duel against an opponent I hadn't yet decided how best to beat.

Within my family it was a common saying that the men born from our royal bloodline had no need for the potent magics of the lettuce plant and now the joke rang true. Having experienced something so powerful and pleasurable with Kaiba I wanted to do so again - many more times. The legacies of my distant ancestors siring small armies of sons and daughters made sense to me now in a way the idea never had before. I felt as though our near coupling in the water had awakened something within me, or enlightened me to the existence of a new and great mystery of the world.

Exploring that discovery would have to wait for now.

Amusingly, despite our intimacy leaving me feeling refreshed and newly energized our time together in the bath seemed to have had the very opposite effect on Kaiba.

He'd been noticeably sedate in the aftermath. Softly illuminated by the light of the afternoon sun I'd never seen Kaiba look so tame or so docile. With the tension in his shoulders relaxed, the angular plains of his face slackened and his nut-colored hair soaked through and in mild disarray he'd looked several years younger.

No one would suspect that now as he prowled beside me through the corridors, scowling in annoyance every so often as his long fingers had sweep the fringe of his wet hair out of his eyes, only for it to stubbornly return there a moment later. The rebelliousness of it seemed appropriate.

Despite the deeper placidity that I could sense within him his stride was purposeful and his posture straight-backed and as arrogant as ever as he kept pace with me. Though dampened by this invisible blanket of calmness the distress of having his marred skin exposed lingered thickly in the air around him like a dense shadow. He swiftly crossed his arms each time we passed a guard or attendant, the positioning of one arm across the other carefully calibrated to hide most of the marks on his forearms. Without his coat eagerly gusting behind him he looked naked in a way that nothing to do with his bared flesh and dressed in so little the pose looked more self-protective than intimidating.

His veiled discomfort left me feeling unsettled.

I planned to remedy it.

Kaiba didn't ask where we were going as we paced the hallways towards the rear most sanctum of my palace that housed the royal domicile. He projected an air of disinterest and only as we neared the twin Hands of the Pharaoh guarding the doorway to my quarters did his face liven from stoicism to reflect a thinly veiled curiosity.

"Nice décor." He quipped as he parted the dark drapery that hung heavily around my room and stepped into it through the gilded doors.

The servants had lit the tall braziers that stood beside my bed and several other candles and lamps. Together they each joined as one to cast a golden light around the large chamber, emboldened by the bright sunlight spilling in from the far balcony.

I suppressed a chuckle as Kaiba's eyes immediately were drawn to the great tapestries of the Egyptian Gods that lined the walls.

I doubted he saw the magnificently woven images of Slifer the Sky Dragon, The Winged Dragon of Ra and Obelisk the Tormentor as anything other than ultimately powerful Duel Monsters that should rightly add their might to his deck. If he did view them as the divine beasts that they were, his stubbornness would compel him to keep silent on the subject. He approached the last of the three, marching toward the elaborate linen weaving of Obelisk to critically examine it like a new possession. Even striding across the room in only a schenti and his discordantly futuristic Duel Disk, Kaiba still seemed to emanate a unique blend of arrogance and unruliness. It made him both infuriating and relentlessly fascinating to watch as he appraised the tapestry as if it belonged to him and not me.

The boldness of it made me smirk.

He studied the hanging for only a minute and then cast the barbed net of his attention around the rest of the chamber.

The middle of my room was empty of anything beside my bed. He glanced at it for a second before a flush of color curiously stained his lean cheeks and he angrily snapped his head in the opposite direction to steadfastly ignore it. His sodden hair flung droplets of water across my quarters as he did so. Kaiba glared at me reproachfully as he noticed I'd been watching him. I left him to conclude his inspection unsupervised and passed through the entrance to the robing room to find new vestments.

It would take longer to dress myself without any attendants than it had to disrobe but I had no intention of calling in the proper vassals and inviting onlookers or interruptions. I was familiar enough with the various things the servants usually attended to and was confident I could manage without them. Towels and linens of varying shapes and colors lined the robing room's shelves and I selected a fresh white robe similar to the one I had shed by the pool but the robe itself had thoughts to the contrary. The material snagged on the right wing of my crown as I pulled it over my head. I thanked the Gods that Kaiba remained ignorant to the display as I twisted my body to be free of it and struggled to disentangle the two by feel alone.

"Ghn." The motion tweaked the cut on my side and I eyed the wound carefully. Re-opening it now while trying to do something as simple as put on my own clothes would be embarrassing, especially knowing the relentless heckling that would follow should Kaiba discover exactly how unused to dressing myself I was. As I pried the fabric back from my body it was a relief to see that he was still otherwise engaged with analyzing my things.

Unwilling to tempt fate a second time I tossed the robe aside for something more manageable.

An elaborate dark purple shendyt with a long triangular tongue was much easier to negotiate around my body. I secured it in place with a black leather belt. Its shape was cut to frame the lower point of the Millennium Puzzle and since arriving in my afterlife it had felt odd to wear the belt without the Item as an accompaniment. Thanks to Kaiba's obstinance reclaiming the Puzzle from Yugi's dimension had become a necessity, so the lack of the Item was no longer an issue.

Despite taking longer than it should have Kaiba paid me no attention as I dressed.

A rare feeling of self-consciousness pricked me as he took his time and moved around my space slowly studying the furniture, paintings, ankhs and tyet knots that imbued the royal room with their protection. He passed the room I was in, glancing at it with little interest as I stepped into clean sandals and fixed a new pauldron into place atop my shoulder. As I fastened a new necklace over my collar bones and replaced the gold band that encircled my waist the sound of his footsteps halted. I emerged freshly garbed to see what had captured his interest as Kaiba paused beside something that by modern standards would have been considered a desk.

The wooden frame was covered with sheets of gold inlaid with colored glass and both its legs and those of the chairs that matched it had feet carved into the shape of roaring lions. It was furniture worthy of seating a Pharaoh but it wasn't the craftsmanship that held Kaiba's gaze. Instead he looked over a board set with the half-finished game of Hounds and Jackals that I'd been playing with Shimon and an inscribed naos sistrum that had belonged to Mother before picking up and unfurling the top most of a small mountain of scrolls.

"No time to play hooky when when you're king, huh?" He commented dryly but his expression was stubbornly unreadable.

The comment cut through the silence of my room. One I had been too distracted to notice was there until it was so abruptly broken.

"You don't strike me the desk job type." Kaiba added, drolly.

There was something very revealing about Kaiba being here, in my room, seeing my things. These weren't Yugi's, or the mementos he'd gathered on my behalf during my stay in the living world. These were uniquely mine – each possession an artifact personal to me. I wondered what Kaiba's opinion was as I swept over the objects in the room and relived the memories of each one.

At my lack of response blue eyes glanced up from the scroll and followed the line of my vision to the bridle of my very first horse as I admired it on the adjacent wall, next to the triangular bow and matching bow box Father had commissioned for my birthday and the elegantly carved ram-headed ritual staff that Mahad had gifted to me for completing the trials associated with becoming a recognized court Magician, despite not strictly needing to do so as the son of the Pharaoh.

"No, I'm not." I admitted in delayed amusement, finding the timing of the observation poignant as I beheld the tokens of my life as a prince. I hadn't found much time for any of my hobbies after becoming the Pharaoh back when I still lived. In the afterlife there were no neighboring nations to require peacekeeping, no battles or wars to fight, no droughts or famines to plan for. I'd been able to enjoy many of my old pastimes since arriving here, but only because my afterlife lacked the flaws that had made my original reign so challenging.

I could feel the pressure of Kaiba's eyes on my face as he watched me closely for a moment. Without passing further comment he merely rolled the scroll back up and carelessly tossed it onto of the neatly arranged mountain of correspondences stacked up on my desk. They were most likely reports on the various aspects of my kingdom; probably the sort that I wouldn't care to deal with.

"I'll have Seto tell me what they say when he awakens." I added, placing the duty of seeing to the missives as far from my mind as I could. In my peripheral vision I saw Kaiba's eyes narrow at the use of his given name, even though he knew full well it was one he was currently required to share.

"Why not just read them yourself?" Kaiba demanded, suddenly almost seeming offended. It was as if I'd just declared an intent to waste his time and not my High Priest's.

I enjoyed the surly sight and concluded that "There are more pressing matters to attend to at the moment". Yugi. Mahad. Seto. Even Kaiba himself. Each of them was far more important than whatever paperwork was waiting for me. "Besides, I don't care much for reading."

Kaiba stared at me steadily, apparently waiting for the punchline to a joke.

I shrugged at him casually. At my less than committal gesture his leer transformed into the sort of wary expression my High Priest reserved for deranged criminals or raving lunatics.

"You don't 'care much for reading'" He repeated incredulously, as though I'd just shared with him the sordid details of a royal scandal.

To Kaiba it was likely an odd concept to reconcile with.

In the modern world it was a necessity to read often and copiously. I'd found it much easier to do so while in Yugi's body, but here in my own the characters had a tendency to blur and sway on the papyrus the longer I stared at them. Seto also had a habit of encoding any missives he though were sensitive or especially important with a personal cipher that he often changed without warning. Mahad suspected Seto did it just to vex him. Whatever the reason I'd discovered long ago it was quicker to have my High Priest read the scriptures to me than gamble and squint at them myself in the candlelight until the hieroglyphs stayed still, only to discover the message unintelligible.

The lull of Kaiba's disbelief gave me the opportunity to throw the towel I was holding to him and with my hands free I began to navigate the inner compartments of the gilded chest beside my desk that contained Father's coat. Much like Kaiba my Father had harbored a fondness for them, though the cut of his were looser and befitting Egypt's climate. Most had been entombed with him but one remained. It'd gone long forgotten at the bottom of a trunk in the Pharaoh's chambers and having ascended to the throne those very chambers had since become my own.

In the periphery of my vision Kaiba turned away from me to begin toweling himself dry with a single-minded determination that was amusing to watch. He attacked his own body with the cloth, the raw focus in his eyes seeming almost comical as he applied himself so seriously to a task that was so mundane. I had to look away from him to pull the item free as my fingertips touched the familiar texture of the parcel I was seeking at the bottom of the chest. Having never before been worn it was still carefully wrapped up in rough linen canvas just as Father had received it. Kaiba reflexively caught the garment as I pulled the package free and threw it at him, deftly snatching it out of the air as he tossed his towel aside onto my bed.

"What's this?" He glared at me suspiciously for good measure before snapping the twine that bound the canvas together and unfolding it.

The gold thread and beadwork sewn into the bottom wasn't to his liking, or so I assumed from his childishly sour expression as he ran his fingers over the stiff stitching, but I wagered any coat was better than none at all. That assumption was promptly proven correct.

"You might want to start reading things again, Pharaoh." Kaiba smirked as he held the garment out in front of him to judge the fit before shrugging it across his back, "Because it looks like you ordered the wrong size." He quipped, already looking ten times more comfortable as he pulled his arms through the fine material.

I shook my head at the playful jab, feeling my earrings bounce against my jaw as I did so.

"It belonged to my Father, but he never wore it." I reflected. Father hadn't liked red clothing and had many other more preferable vestments of a similar cut so it had gone completely unused. Kaiba paid me little mind as he patted the fabric down to smooth it against the muscular lines of his body. He was a little taller than Father had been. The hem of the coat only stretched down to his calves and not his ankles but the missing length hardly mattered and it hid the scars on his forearm, neck and shoulder well enough. "He didn't like the color." I summarized.

Red had certain connotations, symbolizing life but also destruction and evil. Father had viewed it to be an unlucky color, especially for a Pharaoh, one that was best worn in small doses or not at all. It represented anger, chaos and was closely bound in association to Set, our tempestuous God of storms and the divine progenitor of my High Priest's name. A name that Kaiba had had fittingly inherited despite being born thousands of years and many countries removed from my people and our Gods.

Destiny was truly a powerful force.

"Tch. Me and him both." Kaiba sneered nastily, interrupting my musings as his mood abruptly shifted as unpredictably as the wind.

His lips slightly turned downwards and pulled against each other tightly as his lower jaw subtly clenched.

I'd seen him do this several times now while in my afterlife. Possibly it was something he'd done with some frequency back in Domino as well and I'd been too distant from him to notice. I felt my eyebrow's quirk upward in interest as I contemplated the strange habit. It seemed to happen largely at random but I doubted that was truly the case. Usually the expression was followed up with a sudden outburst of anger that had no obvious source or purpose.

Just as I expected his cool blue eyes chilled with an icy ire and he scowled viciously at the loose-fitting sleeves of the appropriated coat, eyeing the baggy fabric with venom as it slightly lagged behind the movement of his arms and in those moments revealed the burns on his upper wrists.

I contemplated the dilemma of successfully navigating this new development as he carefully pulled the material to lie flat on his arm over his Duel Disk, covering the marks from view once more.

"Seto's cuffs would hide those." I noted. The gold bands would be ideal for the task.

Kaiba's eyes quickly flashed up to mine. "Pass." He scoffed heatedly.

I frowned at him and his testy reply but refused to feed his temper with a similarly harsh tone, though a question of 'why?' was implied in the sharp look I aimed his way.

"Gold isn't my thing." Kaiba crossed his arms and scanned over my possessions once more before glaring back at me with a steely expression. "Besides, if you came back to Domino would you really wanna wear all of Yugi's stuff?" His features shifted into a condescending amusement. "Though I'm gonna guess the leather and buckles weren't exactly his idea to begin with."

"You're hardly one to talk in that regard." I parried plainly, fixing him with an unimpressed stare before relenting with an admission of "Yet I see your point."

Yugi had been kind to me. More generous a host than I could have ever hoped for. Each time he'd discovered something I enjoyed he'd made an effort to incorporate it into his life. Whenever he'd had the opportunity falafels, onion rings and mozzarella sticks had become frequent side orders and many of the things he'd worn during our duels had been for my comfort instead of his own. His thoughtfulness was without bounds. Even so, I had to concede that Yugi's school uniform wasn't something I'd wear again if given the choice.

By that same logic I could understand Kaiba's refusal to borrow from Seto's wardrobe, especially as the two didn't appear likely to ever get along.

"Though wearing your dad's stuff is off-putting in a different way." Kaiba added, his harsh tone lessened by distraction as he finished adjusting the coat to his liking

My eyes trailed over Kaiba's body.

"I think it suits you." I complimented with finality, goading Kaiba with a pleased smirk. It was a risky move given his shifting mood but I was learning to enjoy the challenge that came with strategizing how to best conquer his temperamentality.

It was also very true.

Despite the undesirable and ironically appropriate color the coat fit him well. It accentuated the width and strength of his well toned torso as it narrowed into his trim angular waist and flared out behind him as though the long dormant garment had been brought back to life by Kaiba's innate energy. Even in the face of his obvious irritation I couldn't help but smile to myself as I beheld him returned to form. The sight filled my chest with a feeling of fondness.

Kaiba paused at my compliment, rendered still by my words as he judged my expression warily. His eyes narrowed to snake-like slits before he answered with soft grunt of "Hnh. Don't get used to it." though his tone lacked the bitterness it otherwise could have held. "Once my clothes are dry you'll never catch me in any of this ever again." He parried, in somewhat playful mockery.

He may be waiting for them longer than he thought.

I suspected that after we'd left the bath all of the discarded clothes had been collected up by my servants to be properly washed. Frankly, Kaiba's needed it.

"I'll enjoy it while it lasts." I countered, choosing to keep that insight to myself as I stepped into his personal space and threaded my fingers through his. Kaiba's fingers tensely twitched before ardently interlocking with my own. He responded to me by leaning down as I stretched upwards to meet his lips in a kiss that was quick and harsh, just shy of being nip. Every one of these exchanges felt new and different, like the final turn of a victorious duel. It invigorated me and I pulled us together, the renewed keenness of my body meeting only softness as I pushed my hips towards Kaiba's own.

"What, your people haven't invented the refractory period yet?" He muttered against my mouth.

I raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar term.

"It's the time it takes for-" Kaiba began and then blushed hotly, looking equal parts awkward and irritated as he cut off his sentence half way and instead finished with a growl of "Forget it."

Chuckling at him earned me a half-hearted scowl. I gathered his meaning from context alone. Though I was eager to experience more of him, to meet him again on this new and gratifying battlefield, Kaiba apparently needed more time to recover from our previous encounter.

He looked away sharply, fighting to hide a look of embarrassment if his warring features were any indication and snorted tiredly as the damp weight of his own bangs fell back into his eyes again at the abrupt movement. The sight made me grin and in turn my grin made Kaiba step away with a reprimanding glower and snare the towel he'd left behind on my bed to resume his previous task.

"Laugh it up, Pharaoh." He jeered blandly, roughly applying the towel to his head to massage his bangs dry. "Unlike you and Yugi, most people's hair doesn't act like memory foam."

Made wild by the treatment and now peppered with flyaways Kaiba's thick shock of hair had a striking resemblance to Joey's as he pulled the towel back to sightlessly paw and claw his fingers through it.

"So I see." I countered, watching the display in amusement while Kaiba did battle with it again. He continued for some time before pausing to try and tease and finesse his hairstyle into it's usual appearance. "We are in Egypt, Kaiba. It'll dry on it's own." I noted even as the familiarity of the sight made me feel warm in a way that had nothing to do with the hot temperature.

He ignored that completely which would have irritated me had the reaction not been made predictable by knowing my High Priest.

As he rose through the ranks of the priesthood Seto had also become very particular about his hair. He would all but snarl at anyone who wetted or otherwise disfigured it. The headdresses he wore were a vaunted mark of his station as High Priest but also a clever way to protect his scalp from lice without needing to shave his head. Perhaps it was a family trait as I too joined him in the refusal to part with my hair. Wigs itched and there was something about them I found uncanny. I'd disliked them for as long as I could remember, refusing to wear one in the place of my real hair even as a child. Mother had found the rebellion enchanting and allowed me to have my way, much to Father's chagrin.

"The back loses its shape if it isn't dried right." Kaiba muttered as he began viciously swiping at his hair once more, hooking some of the thick strands over his ears and pulling others towards the back of his head.

With the towel in hand he stood still in the middle of my chamber, twisting his head from one end of my room to the other as if searching for something. I wasn't sure what.

"If you're looking for a hair dryer then you're a few thousand years too early." I goaded, watching with satisfaction as the comment made him turn back to me, scowling unimpressed.

"No mirrors either." He concluded sourly.

"Only hand mirrors." I confirmed with a nod of my head. Kaiba's answering eyeroll suggested that wouldn't be sufficient for his purposes. "Your cosmetological needs will have to go wanting." I taunted with a smirk.

"Great." He deadpanned, lifting the towel to his skull and trying to both flatten and dry the cinnamon tresses as he pressed the cloth down the back of his neck in long strokes. "Looking like a punk it is then." The thick stands were smoothed down with each reapplication of the towel to his head but the end effect was nowhere near the extreme tidiness of his hair's usual style.

With a casual roll of my shoulders I blinked at him slowly before volunteering myself for the task, if only to see his reaction. "You could let me try."

He didn't outwardly respond to my offer at all for a moment. Then, he snidely grunted "Got a ladder?"

I stepped across the great square-cut stone slabs that made up the chamber's floor, remarking "Your diligence to being as obtuse as possible at all times is impressive" as I took a seat on my bed. I pushed aside the pillow so I could lean back against the headboard and smirked at him in challenge. Kaiba only stared skeptically as I waved him over to sit in front of me where I would have full access to his back.

"Hnnnnh." Kaiba grumbled, eyeing the sweeping awnings that traveled the length of the wooden beams above the bed to frame it on all sides with a paranoia that would have been vaguely insulting had it not been so absurd. I could see the scales in his eyes, weighing tempering his pride now to join me on the bed against navigating the rest of the duel with a less than perfect appearance.

"Whatever." He decided.

After a lengthy internal debate he joined me, crossing his legs to sit tense in front of me on the bed.

"It should look-"

"-I know how it's supposed to look." I interrupted factually.

At that Kaiba handed over the towel with reluctance, as if by doing so he was consenting to be strangled with it.

With gritted teeth he stayed rigid and still as I applied the towel to the top of his head and worked downwards towards the nape of his neck, trying to copy what he'd been struggling to do by feel alone. I didn't permit my eyes to linger on the burns at the back of his neck. Instead I focused on the soft silken texture of his hair and the way the it shined slightly copper in the afternoon light. It had been cut to lead neatly down into a point on his spine, ending just before the juncture at which his neck met his shoulders. I followed that line downward with mixed results, dodging the circular scars there as I did so.

As a boy I'd often laid by Mother's side when she was feeling to weak to rise from her bed and relaxed into the familiar strokes as she petted my hair. It had been calming and soothing. Though lessened by his tension a similar effect wasn't lost on Kaiba. Just as he began to ease against me and his back melt into my chest my fingernails caught on the scalp behind his ear. The brief contact made him jump, before turning back to snap "Don't do that" over his shoulder at me with an intriguing blush of pink coloring staining his face.

"Aha." I agreed, slowly blinking at him until he turned back around even while I committed the reaction to my memory.

After several long minutes of drying his hair as I would have my own the dampness abated and in boredom the stiffness of Kaiba's body faded. His head and neck became pliant in my grasp as he leaned against me fully. My attempt, though earnest, wasn't yielding the result I'd expected. As I rubbed and pinched the copper strands dry with the towel I left behind upturned tufts like those of an animal's whose fur had been stroked in the wrong direction. I hummed, finding it typical that even Kaiba's hair was defiant to my wishes. A final stroke that pressed too hard against the back of his head in an effort to tame the rogue ruffles drew Kaiba's suspicion.

Leaning forward he batted my hand away, feeling at the cowlicks on the back of his head with his hand.

"Nailed it." He sarcastically drawled, before belated adding "You're not good at this." with a pleased smirk.

I frowned. "Yes, I can see that." The vassals who attended me as I washed and dried always made this look so easy.

My admission seemed to fill him with a wicked delight. He looked impossibly contented with my ineptitude as he settled back against me, as if inviting me to continue failing for his own petty amusement. I was surprised that in the minutes that followed that he didn't respond with another witty remark. The lack of one was suspicious. I supposed I should be grateful for the interlude, though I suspected Kaiba's newly acquired patience came from the dark joy of knowing I was failing in this task rather than a sincere appreciation of my efforts.

I glanced to his face, ready to counter whatever barb he was waiting to throw at me next but found the reason for his silence much easier to deal with.

His eyes were closed.

"Are you asleep?" I murmured.

"Yes. Thanks for asking." He softly snarked.

I fixed him with a smile that he couldn't see while seated in front of me and lowered the towel to lie on the bed.

With my fingers I tried teasing the peaks I'd left behind in his hair down with my fingers. They were as difficult to persuade as Kaiba himself, but responded slightly better to this treatment. With one smoothed flat I repeated this elsewhere, gradually making my way back down the length of his neck and toward the burns at the base. The sight stilled my ministrations as my fingers neared one to the right of his spinal column that his shirts and high necklines had likely always covered.

He'd been unflinching in revealing the scars to me before our bath; his face determined, furious and courageous in a turbulent mix that Kaiba blended together with ease. Upon seeing them it had felt as if the blistering heat of his fury towards the man I assumed was responsible for branding him was somehow my own as well. Out of respect I hadn't permit myself to dwell on the marks. Kaiba had been upset enough without me saying anything more on the topic.

Abruptly Kaiba stiffened against me, interrupting my thoughts.

"Stop looking at them." He sneered, his relaxed posture and angry tone fusing together into a low growl. "I don't want your pity."

"It's not pity, Kaiba." I frowned pensively. Warriors fighting at war rarely came back from battle unscathed. Scars like these were the cost of victory. I knew this as well as he did. "I just regret that you have them." I concluded sincerely.

"Save it." Came the mildly derisive reply, his voice growing subtly softer the longer his eyes stayed closed. "It's not like they're your fault."

He sounded certain, but I wasn't sure about that.

If it was Seto's wish to aid me that had led to his reincarnation then Kaiba's destiny was one designed ultimately to help me reach this afterlife. The implications were troublesome. By that reasoning fate had placed him into the hands of Gozaburo Kaiba intentionally ultimately for my benefit; to mold him into the ruthless duelist I called my rival.

If that was true then I would be throwing everything Kaiba had endured back in his face if I ever considered leaving this place.

After a pause he spoke again, unwittingly filling the air with dismissive words that should have been a comforting assurance but weren't. "What's in the past doesn't matter anymore." He muttered.

By his own uncompromising logic that was true. It wasn't Kaiba's habit to dwell on such things. That was likely for the best. It made me wonder something though. When I was in Kaiba's past would I no longer matter either?

I'd wanted that just a few short days ago; for him to discard me and move on. For him to live his life.

Now I wasn't so certain. This young affectionate thing we were building meant something to me. I wanted to preserve the memory of each kiss and quarrel and verbal joust - to bottle them all up in a canopic jar - so they would stay with me forever. I wanted it to mean the same to him; for us to be equally matched in this. It was a selfish mortal desire, but as Pharaoh I was only half-divine and if Kaiba had his say doubtless not even that.

"You discard your past so carelessly." I began slowly, choosing my words carefully. "After you've return to Domino will you dismiss me too?" Would I be cast aside to summon his new future, like sacrificing away a Duel Monster from the playing field?

I jumped as Kaiba barked out a harsh laugh that took me by surprise. It was almost a scoff, but one of genuine amusement.

"If things had gone differently, sure." He drawled, setting my pulse racing as I waited for him to continue with something it took me a moment to recognize as nervousness. "If I'd just straight up won our duel I'd already be back home by now, putting you in the rear view mirror." There was no doubt in his tone or hesitation in his words – they were quick and unflinchingly. "Even if I'd lost it would at least have been a conclusion to our battle that I was prepared to face."

_"Atem." He had never used my name before. Hearing it from his lips the short syllables seemed heavier than I'd ever known them to sound before. They were weighted down with an intense need for something that only Kaiba could communicate so deftly with so few words. "I need this done." He told me simply._

"Like I could now, though." He smirked. "More like I'll get back and wonder if any of it even happened."

"What?" What was he saying?

His shoulders shrugged against my chest, the right hitching slightly higher than the left.

"I'll tell Mokuba about it, leaving out all the kissing bits, and it'll feel real for a few months. Then that'll start to go away." He explained, sounding indifferent to his own prediction. "So I'll start wondering if the Dual Dimension system crapped out and I lost consciousness re-entering the atmosphere, and this was all a stupid dream." Tilting his head to meet my eyes he leaned back further against my chest and his blunt piercing conclusion stilled my blood. "You won't get to become the past, Pharaoh. You'll become another thing permanently looping inside my head before that can happen." He taunted, as though he thought he was scoring a point.

That was close to the answer that I'd wanted, but I felt no pleasure hearing it. Almost the opposite.

Kaiba. You fool.

"Sit up." I commanded. His victorious smirk dulled instantly as I ordered him to move and all of his relaxation slipped away as he pulled his body forward to disconnect it from mine.

"What?" He demanded warily, abruptly agitated as I willed myself free of the bed and walked back to my desk, finding a clean sheet of papyrus and reed pen there.

"It's nothing. Don't worry." I replied simply, squinting to focus on the paper. The order was short and to the point. I heard Kaiba make a sharp "Tch." noise as I waved the finished message in the air to dry the ink and I turned back to find him watching me closely through gloomy narrowed eyes like a small boy thinking he was about to be scolded. "I'm not angry with you." I assured him, feeling my eyebrows raise in surprise at both the clear assumption and his reaction. Kaiba silently glowered at me, apparently less than convinced. "I just need to send this message." I added, rolling the missive up and tying it with a papyrus string.

"Great time to do your paperwork." He sneered sardonically, the fresh tension that had gripped his shoulders leeching out slightly as I opened the door to my chamber and handed off the scroll to one of the Hands of the Pharaoh standing poised outside. "Take this to Shimon." I bid the guard. "He has my permission to withdraw from the royal vault and follow these instructions."

With a dutiful bow the Hand turned away to do my bidding and I closed the chamber door once more.

Kaiba stared at me like a cautious cat unsure if it was about to ejected from a warm room as I rejoined him on the bed, nesting behind him once more to assume our previous position. He didn't ask me what it was I'd just done even as he stiffly leaned back against me for the second time. I couldn't tell if that was due to defiance, fatigue, or a polymerization of both. Gently I returned my hands to his head to pet his hair again, hoping to soothe the stress my hasty decision had created from his body.

"So now you're just gonna boss around the knockoff of Yugi's fossil of a grandfather since 'Seto' isn't around?" He quipped, gradually easing back against me as he hissed his own name snake-like. The question was snide and sarcastic, so likely genuine.

"You know as well as I do that Solomon Muto is a skilled duelist. Just as Shimon makes for a brilliant Grand Vizier." I parried. Kaiba might not respect much, but he appreciated the talent of those he deemed to be expert duelists at the very least. I suspected that list wasn't a long one but Yugi's grandpa should have earned a place on it many times by now. "And 'Seto' is his name too." I added, addressing the other more petulant part of the prickly comment as I eyed the Seto lying against me, making sure to keep my tone and body language relaxed and neutral.

"He can keep it." Kaiba commented, his tone growing a little soft and distant as his eyelids lowered steadily. I was glad he was resuming our embrace so easily as he relaxed against me again. "I'm better off being 'Kaiba'."

"You wield it as a title." I noted. Across Domino 'Kaiba' was a brand that penetrated every household. Kaiba had claimed his status to be comparable to Pharaohdom in my throne room. I supposed in the modern world it really was.

"It is one. In Domino at least." Kaiba grunted back. "My KaibaCorp surveillance system gives me eyes on the whole city. The Domino police have been funded by KaibaCorp for the last ten years and the media is strangled from reporting on me under Domino provincial law since I'm technically still a minor. I'm untouchable." He elaborated, yawning as he did so in either tiredness or boredom. "Next October will be a trainwreck though."

"Why? What happens in October?" I questioned. Nothing that had once been in Yugi's calendar sprang to mind.

"My birthday's in October." Was the short, factual reply.

"Aha." That felt like something I should have already known.

"Don't worry about it. I don't know when yours is either." He muttered, eyes almost closed.

I frowned, realizing that I wasn't sure either where my birthday fell in his modern day calendar. My High Priest was born in the flooding season - I recalled it because his birthday was very close to Mahad's. If Seto and Kaiba shared a birthday and the later half of Akhet corresponded to October then I could walk back our respective seasons back to find the approximate month for the later half of Shemu.

"It's in early June." I calculated.

"Hnh. Makes sense. Yugi's is the forth." He murmured.

Kaiba was right, it was now that he mentioned it. Why did Kaiba remember that? I frowned, finding it strange and curious in equal measure.

He answered me before I could ask with a lazy grunt of "Numbers are easy."

This made me hesitate. Kaiba had just given me several personal facts about himself in as many minutes and each one was a surprise.

Did I truly know him so little?

"Stupid things like that just don't matter between duelists like us." He added sleepily. I didn't know if he had noticed my contrition and was trying to soothe it or was simply speaking his own thoughts aloud.

"Perhaps not." But despite my response I wasn't sure about that. I wanted to know Kaiba better, I realized.

Even now, after all these years there was so much about him still to discover. The thought chafed. Our time together and my only opportunity in which to learn more was so short. It was already slipping through my fingers like fine sand.

A long pause passed by without a reply and I confirmed with a glance that Kaiba had fallen asleep in the lull. His head was bowed to rest on his chest and his dark brown eyelashes cast a fan of shadows over the the deep shading under this eyes that looked like smudged kohl. His fingers twitched, he jerked and his eyes squeezed tightly closed every once in a while before relaxing back into their previous position but even with those flaws he looked peaceful.

There was no doubt that the servants had prepared separate quarters for him, but now that he'd fallen asleep so easily against me whatever chambers had been arranged for him were removed from play.

I willed myself to rest just for a moment and then leave Kaiba here to join the hunt for Andro Sphinx, but the longer I sat watching the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest the harder attempting to marshal my thoughts to that task became.

Leaning back against the headboard of my bed I too slowly closed my eyes.

* * *

**AN:** It feels like after 29 chapters I'm still only just scratching the surface of Atem's mysterious character. We see his bedroom very quickly in the anime but it's just a big empty space with a bed so I've embellished it a bit to make it feel more personal to him. I don't really like diverging from canon unless I have evidence to justify the change, but I have to admit that throughout this story I've both knowingly and accidentally made quite a few deviations. To cover up any massive incongruities I've left the mechanics of how Atem's afterlife works pretty vague by design to allow for some suspension of disbelief. Ultimately his bedroom (and whole afterlife) is intended to be a reflection of Atem and what he _needs_ to be contented for the rest of eternity, but not necessarily what he _wants_. People's needs are often shifting and contradictory and this is the conveniently flexible logic his afterlife functions on for the purposes of this story.

Next chapter we'll catch up with Yugi. Please read and review if you get the chance!


	30. Chapter 30

**Yugi**

"Here goes nothing." I called back to Yami.

He nodded back with a determination that was contagious. "Right." I felt it fill me with courage as I squared my shoulders and turned back to the ancient gilded door.

I didn't like deliberately breaking things or big shows of force so for a second I just frowned down at the seal. Barging down doors was more of Joey and Tristan's thing. Those guys could get themselves into all sorts of trouble like that. Channeling the strength of my friends I drew my leg back and kicked upward, striking at the clay seal square on with my foot just like they would've done.

"Bmmmm!"

It worked. I hit it hard! The force even made the massive door behind shudder a little in place. I had to hop on the spot a bit to get my balance back, but as soon as I was steady again I took another look at the seal to inspect the damage.

My high kick had left behind a fracture in the clay, one that gradually started to open as the seal cracked more and more, like ice breaking. With a hollow thud the damaged pieces of the seal crumbled away from the end of the elaborate knot they'd been binding and fell to the floor. I jumped back in surprise as they disintegrated into piles dirt and melted into the floor before my eyes.

"Okay." I noted to myself, patting my heart as it began hammering in my chest. "That's the seal down."

I held still and waited.

I'd been expecting something terrible to happen; like a Blue-Eyes to burst through the door and chase me down the hallway, but there was nothing. Only silence and the sound of my own breathing. The fact that I seemed to have gotten away with breaking the seal open so easily didn't make me feel better. It only made me more certain that something scary was about to happen, but there was no point standing here waiting to become dragon-chow.

Okay. It was time to undo the rope. "Now it's just time for the kno- ahh!".

"Yugi!" Yami shouted from a way behind me as I jumped backwards and fell flat on my butt.

"I'm okay!" I assured him as I rubbed the back of my head, slightly embarrassed to have overreacted so badly to something relatively harmless.

Feeding back on itself the rope had reacted as I'd reached for it, twisting in the air like a snake and unraveling the knot at its end so it could flail as if it was alive. "It's just...the rope started magically untying itself." I explained, glancing back to Yami over my shoulder as he hung in the doorway to Kaiba's lab looking like he was two seconds away from charging over to me, holographic projectors or not. It pull itself free of the door handles and sped up as it uncoiled and flicked around, undoing all of the elaborate hitches that had been keeping it tied up and binding the door closed. With a final whip-like lunge the rope undid itself completely, bursting into a shower of golden magical spray and then disappearing into nothing. "I guess it spooked me a bit." I assured him with a nervous smile.

"Creeeeeeeeeeeee." The double doors parted down the middle, opening up on their own with a long creepy creaking noise. A tongue of dry, musty air that smelt like dust and old furniture blasted me in the face as I sat on the ground, watching the door slowly open itself.

"Be careful, Yugi."

"Yeah." I nodded, distracted by the wall of inky blackness I could see through the doorway. "I will be." I swallowed down a lump of dread, staring through the parted doors into the abyss of nothingness. There wasn't anything I could see or hear to clue me in on what was waiting for me on the other side. It could have been anything. The darkness was ominous and I couldn't take my eyes off it even as I stood back up. It felt like if I did, something was going to reach out and yank me through the door.

"You don't have to go in there. We can find another way to fix this place." Yami cautioned. His tone sounded serious. I didn't look at back him, even as I shook my head.

"I think I do." I answered. I could hardly walk away now; not after I'd broken the protective seal on... whatever it was that was in there. I had to finish this now that I'd started it. "For Kaiba's sake."

Yami didn't reply as I teased open the doors until the narrow opening was wide enough for me to fit through.

Turning back to him I put on my most reassuring smile. It was soft and not anywhere near as confident as the Pharaoh's when he was dueling, but it was mine. "I'll be quick, okay?"

Yami hesitated and frowned before eventually blinking. "Alright. Good luck." He hesitated before adding "I'll be here" in a mildly frustrated, powerless tone that I could understand.

If things went wrong in there, or I really did get attacked by a dragon, then there was nothing he would be able to do to help me.

Knowing that made everything seem so much more dangerous. I'd gone without any of the Pharaoh's help for the last half a year and those six months had been quiet, but this was just like when I was prepping for my valedictorian speech. Yami was a confident speaker and I'd missed not getting his feedback or suggestions, but I knew I'd managed it on my own. I'd overcome my fear of public speaking and given it my all. I would have loved to have had his help... but I didn't need it anymore. I could do things without him, I just had to try my best.

"Here I go!" I announced, planting one foot in front of the other.

The toes of my shoes disappeared into the void with my first step through the door but I could still feel them, so that was a good sign. I marched the rest of my body through the threshold, holding my breath with anticipation of anything and everything that could be thrown at me on the other side as I did so.

For a second everything turned black and then with a bright white flash I could see again as I crossed over into somewhere else, feeling the temperature and humidity of the air skyrocket.

"...Wow." The sight was... incredible. It was as if I'd stepped through a TV screen straight into a documentary on the Valley of the Kings. The whole corridor was a work of art.

A procession of huge pillars lined the new hallway inscribed from top to bottom in hieroglyphs and bright paintings of Egyptian figures covered the walls and even the ceiling like in the ancient tombs of Egypt's most famous Pharaohs. Almost all of them had Atem's High Priest in them. They were scenes of him winning wars and meeting gods, some looked more diplomatic with him simply seated on a throne with servants surrounding him and others were naval battles and huge parties. I wasn't an expert, but the outfits he was wearing and the iconography seemed a bit too much even for a High Priest, but that hardly mattered.

Every door that lined the new hallway was as elaborate and richly decorated as the one I'd passed through to get here, made of gilded wood and stone and some of metal like the door to the Pharaoh's Soul Room had been back when we'd shared a corridor a lot like this in between our own Soul Rooms.

All of the doors were either open or ajar, filling the corridor with weird smells and sounds. From one close to me wafted the salty tang of sweat and the sound of weapons clashing against each other. Looking in I could see it was a memory of Atem's High priest training in a courtyard. The next door along wasn't as wide open, but I could hear the soft pattering of footsteps and a soft humming noise coming from the other side. It was a muffled arrhythmic muttering, like people talking.

"I'm busy. Whatever you have to show me had best be important, Isis."

"It is."

The mumbling grew louder as I crept over to the door.

The voices sounded familiar.

"This is what the Necklace has shown you?" The first one demanded.

Hearing Kaiba's voice made sense, given whose Soul Room I was in. The hoarse tone he used was clipped and businesslike. It had an edge but it wasn't as harsh as Kaiba's usually was. It was the voice of a busy man who had more things to do in the day than he did hours to do them in, like my dad's in the mornings before he had to catch a flight.

"Yes." Came the serene voice of a woman. I recognized it right away too. It was Ishizu's, but softer. Almost as if she was tired. "The masons have recreated my visions exactly as I have seen them, my Pharaoh."

Wait. 'Pharaoh'?

I leaned my head right up against the door, putting my ear to the wood. The bottom of my stomach lurched like I'd gone over the peak of a roller coaster as the door swung open and I almost fell straight through the doorway.

"Ah!"

The two figures standing by the far wall didn't react to my near entrance.

Both were illuminated by only firelight as braziers crackled around the outskirts of a large stone chamber and cast a harsh orange tone that slipped into the grooves between the bricks and dipped into the details of a huge carving spanning the wall in front of them. I was glad this wasn't a memory that I was visible in like the first one with the little Kaiba as I leaned in through the threshold for a closer look. He seemed pretty unique from that point of view.

Atem's priestess and High priest stood stiller than statues as specs of dust and motes of ash from the braziers fluttered through the air around them.

There were a few streaks of grey in Isis's hair and even though it was dark I could make out shallow crows feet in the corners of her eyes. The High Priest was clearly older too. A long pointed beard I could never imagine Kaiba growing out framed his chin, which had only become thinner with age as his cheeks had grown hollower. It wasn't the only new addition either. Around his neck was a familiar shape I'd recognize anywhere that looked really out of place on Kaiba's body; the Millennium Puzzle.

Standing side by side the priests were pensively staring up at the wall of hieroglyphs and Duel Monsters carvings that towered above their heads. I recognized it instantly as the stone tablet from the museum as it loomed over them, whole and undamaged. It looked brand new so it must have just been carved. There was a coat of color painted onto it that had clearly faded away in our own time and not a crack or fracture in sight.

"It is a collection of visions I have had many times in fragments over the years, beginning since long before you became Pharaoh." Isis's deep blue eyes lingered on the carvings of Atem and Mahad sadly. That explained why the Puzzle was around the High Priest's neck. He was the Pharaoh now. "But never have they been so clear or complete as in these last few weeks." she noted, casting her hand towards the massive wall of carvings I could barely see in the flickering darkness.

I wondered if Atem had any awareness from inside the Puzzle at this point. Had he silently watched his friends age through his High Priest's eyes like a window, or had he been unaware of it all? Thinking of being in that position, getting left behind and seeing Joey, T_é_a, Tristan, Duke and Bakura all grow up without being there with them, it made me shiver. I couldn't decide which option was worse - watching or not watching.

Isis traced the outline of Mahad's carving reverently with her thumb. The motion was slow and loving even though her expression was somber.

The High Priest, uh, Pharaoh didn't interrupt. He tapped a finger against his arms impatiently but waited until she'd finished before asking his question. "And what is this all supposed to mean?" He demanded in a very Kaiba-like way, turning his head away from the tablet dismissively.

Isis looked over the stone as she ran her fingers over the eye of the Millennium Necklace around her throat. "That the previous Pharaoh shall fulfill his destiny."

The Pharaoh threw Isis a mean look for her answer. I guessed that was his way of telling her to be more specific. He grunted at her tersely, studying the carving of the giant reeds that flanked figure of Atem on all sides. "You're certain that he will claim his place in the afterlife?" For just a second his hand moved to his chest to hold the Millennium Puzzle, but he quickly let it go.

"Yes." The older Isis inclined her head in confirmation.

"That is pleasing to hear." He noted. His voice didn't sound happy but there was something in the way his eyes shifted, warmed and looked almost relieved for a second that made the sentiment real.

"Until his place there is challenged." Isis added neutrally, "That is the tale of this sacred stone."

The Pharaoh's eyes narrowed and trailed over it again, carefully taking in all of the details before they stopped and glared at the image of Kaiba in irritation. "The stone masons have outdone themselves rendering me in such an outlandish garb."

"It is as I instructed them to, for that is exactly as the Millennium Necklace has shown it to me." Isis easily parried. "He is a descendant of yours, or something similar."

The Pharaoh scoffed bitterly. "A Pharaoh can have no descendants without heirs." His expression only became darker at that.

The comment made Isis pause and hesitate, her hand hovering in the air before turning back to the Pharaoh. "There is yet still time for you to take a queen." She noted lightly.

"It has never been a question of mere time." The Pharaoh replied bluntly. His jaw locked up and a muscle jumped in his cheek as his eyes were pulled to the carving of Blue-Eyes with a look that was bleak and melancholy. He ignored Isis's expression as her features down-turned in a wistful understanding.

After a mournful silence she spoke again. "Whatever he _is_ matters little, for it is what he _does_ that is of greater concern."

The sorrowful lines of the Pharaoh's face settled into an unimpressed sneer. "Speak plainly."

"Very well." Isis replied, slowly taking stock of the various carvings. "He speaks an unknown spell of great power and from it is born a Shadow Game. It is to be played in the Field of Reeds with Osiris himself acting as arbiter." The Pharaoh's eyes widened at shock. He stared at her in open disbelief. "The loser shall remain bound there, fated never to be reborn or step a foot into the living realm again. The winner is to leave the land of the dead and return to life."

"What!"

Isis raised her hand up again to the writing on the tablet, gesturing at it. "As it was in my vision I have transcribed the incantation here."

The Pharaoh inspected the tablet cautiously, leaning back a bit from his hips to get a good look at it from top to bottom. He didn't give anything away even as he turned back to Isis after reading the inscription. "Such a dangerous sorcery is ripe for abuse, and you commit it to stone?" His eyes narrowed even more and his tone changed into one that was accusing. "How can you be so foolish?"

So Isis had foreseen Kaiba use the spell and recorded it from her vision; making sure the tablet was around in our time for Kaiba to use. They'd made a self-fulfilling prophecy, and they didn't even realize it.

Isis's reply was calm and matter-of-fact. "I wish to learn its secrets."

"Why?" The Pharaoh spat. "A spell such as this is nearly necromancy itself! It is not a spellcraft to study, nor toy with."

Isis didn't seem to bothered by the Pharaoh's anger. I wanted to say the same but this older version of the High Priest was kinda creeping me out. He was so thin he was almost skeletal. Comparing him to Kaiba was hard, especially when Kaiba wasn't only so much younger but had almost managed to get super buff in the last six months. Grandpa told me exercise helped with grieving. I wondered if someone had given Kaiba that same advice. Joey wouldn't cracking jokes about him skipping leg days it but I think that was because he was a bit jealous.

"It is intended to return those bound in the afterlife the living world." Isis sounded serene but there was an argumentative glint in her eyes. She put in a dramatic pause that made the Pharaoh start to scowl before speaking again with very slow and clear words. "A counter-spell made from its teachings may be capable of doing the very reverse. Of setting free those who have been sealed in stone in our world and releasing them to the afterlife."

The Pharaoh broke eye contact briefly, just so he could quickly look back at the carving of Mahad. That didn't for long before his eyes flicked again to the carving of Blue-Eyes. He stared at the dragon for a long time.

"With study, perhaps it is possible that those who have been sealed may be made whole once more in the next world-"

The Pharaoh gritted his teeth, his eyes darting back and forth like he was trying to imagine it, or thinking it through.

"-and that we may yet be reunited with them there when our times come." Isis added softly.

For a long time the Pharaoh didn't say anything. His expression was thoughtful and it made him seem so much wiser than the version of him I knew.

"I am aware of what such a thing means to you, Isis." He eventually said in a low, hoarse voice. I'd never heard Kaiba speak that quietly before. He opened his mouth to continue but then stopped and tried to stifled a cough that didn't sound good. It made his body shake and Isis held out her hand and took a step towards him before he waved he off with a dismissive growl.

"The sorcerer, Anubis." The Pharaoh continued, clearing his throat and changing the subject as he eyed the centermost portion of the tablet with distaste. I guess he recognized the carving of the Pyramid of Light. "Why is the pale mockery of the Millennium Puzzle made by that fool carved here?"

The question drew Isis's concerned eyes towards the carving of the Pyramid of Light too. "In one of my visions Anubis employed it to steal away into the Pharaoh's afterlife -"

"-Anubis is dead and buried. Defeated by the last Pharaoh." The Pharaoh interrupted sourly. "How can he possibly plant the seeds of such an insurgence from the grave?"

I guess they didn't know Anubis was going to come back and use Kaiba to try and defeat Atem again.

Beating the ancient sorcerer at the Duel Dome hadn't been easy. It'd taken all of us, plus an ancient prophecy, mystical dagger and the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon to take him down. None of that had made it onto the tablet; only the image of the three Egyptian God cards sealed inside the Pyramid of Light, just like when Kaiba had activated the trap card.

"I have seen what I have seen and no more." Isis admitted regretfully. "Only in my most recent visions has Anubis's presence been made so clear." She added, her voice taking on an edge as she looked over her own carving. "He will turn us each of us against the Pharaoh in a bid to secure his victory."

A tense stillness settled into the air between the two as the priestess paused.

"The victor of this Shadow Game will indeed return to life, but should the Pharaoh lose to Anubis the sorcerer's escape will plunge the living world into an age of great darkness and turmoil." She concluded.

"But in losing my cousin's soul is yet preserved within the pleasures of the afterlife?" The Pharaoh interrogated, staring at Isis until she nodded in confirmation.

"At a great cost to the world of the living." Isis gravely emphasized. It was a subtle warning, one that the Pharaoh picked up on judging from his hardening glare. The two faced off for a minute before he turned back to the tablet with a swoosh of his cloak.

With a final look over the Pharaoh's expression hardened to be stonier than the carvings themselves. "Destroy the tablet." He abruptly commanded. "It cannot remain intact."

Isis blinked at the strange order, looking every bit as confused as I was. "But what of Mahad? What of Kisa-"

"Destroy it." He repeated with a thin growl. "That is my command, Isis. For as long as this spell exists, my cousin's eternal rest will be threatened." The Pharaoh scowled. "I will not be so negligent as to allow him to be ripped away from the afterlife when he finally takes his rightful place there." His chest jumped as he swallowed another cough. "Break it apart and bury whatever pieces remain."

Isis looked calm again but still sounded dubious as she asked "Bury them where?"

"Wherever you see fit. I care not." The Pharaoh sneered disinterestedly with a flippant wave of his hand, as if the subject was a bad smell he could waft away.

Isis frowned at the instruction ever so slightly and paused. I think she was choosing her words carefully.

"This is fate." She eventually cautioned. "It will not be changed so easily."

"I said destroy it!" The Pharaoh shouted. The cold calm snapped and the burst of anger made him look ten years younger. Suddenly he was looking a lot closer to the Kaiba we knew.

Isis didn't even flinch, like she was used to it. They stared each other down for a few more seconds before she agreed, sounding so tired. She looked lonely and glanced longingly back at the depiction of Mahad.

"Khrr!"

With a short strangled noise the Pharaoh leaned over again, the sharp ridges of his spine pulling against his robe as he coughed roughly in splutters that made his body shake.

"Pharaoh." Isis whispered quietly, the tension between them forgotten instantly as she stepped forward and reached out to him. Her hand gripped his arm as he hacked nosily, the sound and movements of his body only letting up as he spat onto the floor.

His spit was red.

"The air in here is poor for your constitution." The priestess's expression was steady and complicated. Strength layered on top of sadness, acceptance and a deep friendship – the kind I felt when I looked at Téa or Joey. I could see it all in her eyes.

In a smooth motion the Pharaoh pulled away from her and straightened up his robes with a sweep of his hand. "The air here is the least of my ailments." He replied with disinterest, dragging his hand across his mouth to wipe off the red trail that had leaked out one side of his lips. "You know that as well as I."

Isis rubbed his thin arm gently, like he was fragile and could break if she touched him too hard and then retreated back a step.

"Isis." The Pharaoh muttered. He leveled a meaningful look at her. It was intense and pointed but almost sympathetic. His long and slightly gnarled fingers wrapped themselves around the base of the Millennium Puzzle and tensed into a steady fist. "My cousin gave his life to save our world. I will not allow the betrayal of that sacrifice to be my legacy."

After a few seconds of sharing the look Isis dutifully bowed her head.

"Yes... my Pharaoh." Her sad look evaporated and something focused and determined took its place, like she had a plan. "I shall attend to the tablet's destruction personally."

The Pharaoh grunted and apparently that was all it took for Isis to know she'd been dismissed. The priestess turned on her heel and slowly walked out of the room with the short cloak draped over her shoulders rippling behind her.

When he was certain he was alone the Pharaoh sighed, deeply.

The fist that had been clutching onto the Puzzle loosened and he palmed the Item. The look he gave it was pinched and regretful and the following one he gave the carving of Blue-Eyes was hollow and agonized. He let the Puzzle go and slowly stroked the carving of the dragon's neck. The motion was so tender it didn't suit him, but it didn't stay that way. Abruptly everything about him shifted – the hand softly petting Blue-Eyes coiled backwards, his fingers tightening into a fist as the Pharaoh's expression morphed into one of anger and he thrust his arm forwards in a furious punch that slammed his hand into the harsh stone wall. His knuckles cut open and mangled at the impact as he left his fist there, embedded in the tablet and hung his head.

"Damn it." He hissed.

With a wet slap he slammed his hand back against the tablet a second time, rubbing in his blood all over the paint and into the grooves of the stone carving.

"By Pharaoh's blood." He muttered into the stone, leaning towards it so close his forehead almost touched the tablet. "If it is truly destiny that this tablet be made whole once more then I name this stone the doorway between the world of the living and the dead." The Pharaoh's eyes narrowed as a long trickle of red slipped down the surface of the stone. "May it open only once." He growled.

Another round of harsh coughs bubbled up from his throat as closed his eyes and covered the face of the Blue-Eyes carving with his clean hand.

"Forgive me, Kisara..."

"...GAAAAAAROOOOOOOU!" As if the Blue-Eyes White Dragon was answering him a loud echoing roar bounced around the walls and ceiling. The Pharaoh didn't react to it all, even as it rang out like it had been played over a loudspeaker.

Oh no.

That sound hadn't come from inside the room, it'd come from somewhere in the corridor... behind me.

"PzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZT!"

I recognized that noise!

A new crackle of supercharged white electricity shot down the hall way, slamming closed the door to the Pharaoh memory in my face as it arched over the doorway in front of me and careened down the hall, briefly lighting up everything it passed at it ricocheted on through.

"...I guess I know where to find the Guardian." I noted out loud, glancing down the steadily darkening corridor that the zap had come from. If there really was something wrong with this Guardian like the little Kaiba said then the job of finding it had just become much easier. I stepped back from the door I'd been pushed away from and took a deep breath before marching straight down the hallway towards the deepening darkness, squinting a little as the elaborate carvings and colorful paintings that covered every surface began to look more faded and damaged with each new step I took in that direction.

As the light illuminating the hallway dimmed I noticed a piece had been ripped out of the neck of the next pillar along. That set me on high alert. It also had a hole in the middle as if a huge blast had clipped it, and the wall behind it had a chunk missing. I swallowed nervously and stepped as lightly as possible down the hallway, dodging over the dislodged chunks of plaster and stone that cluttered the floor. Ruined things weren't a good sign, but at least they meant I was heading the right way.

The next pillar along was maybe only six foot away and it was damaged too. Deep and long claw marks covered its surface and it had been upended to lie on its side. The banged up pillars and walls continued deeper down the shadowy hallway in a long trail of destruction. The partially broken and tipped pillars made it look like a large creature had crashed its way through the corridor and that matched up with what Yami and I had been suspecting. All of this could easily be the work of one of the Blue-Eyes White Dragons in Kaiba's deck, especially if it had gone bad and started lashing out for some reason.

For my safety I hoped that wasn't the case, but if it was then I'd deal with it. For Kaiba. And, also so I could leave this creepy place and not ever have to come back. That was a big motivator as well.

As I walked its length the hallway seemed to be getting slightly wider with every few feet. I thought it was a trick of the light or my eyes being funny until finally the now slightly-less-than-narrow corridor opened up in a large, circular antechamber lined by pillars and flaming wall sconces.

Something big stirred and groaned, right in the middle of the room. I took cover behind the last pillar I'd passed just to be sure, but I didn't really need to. The longer I stared out at it from behind my cover the more sure I became that it wasn't going to come after me. In fact, the monster looked like it could barely move.

It was weird to see one of Kaiba's dragons out of its usual attack mode. Even seeing it played in defense mode was rare despite the fact it had very good defensive stats. I guess setting it that way contradicted Kaiba's personal approach to life. This Blue-Eyes instead struggled to stand and fell back down like it was being pushed back to the chamber floor by something I couldn't see. Its claws scratched grooves into the stone underneath it as it snarled out an angry growl, tentatively pulling itself onto it's feet only to gnash in pain and sag back down. If this was Kaiba's Soul Room, then why was it trapped in place and stuck behind a sealed door? I couldn't imagine Kaiba abandoning one of his dragons on purpose, especially in a place like this. Its tail twitched slovenly and it I think it became vaguely aware of me as a loose chuck of plaster from the wall crumbled under my feet. It growled faintly, sounding weak and scared.

"Hey, it's okay." I told it as it tried to get up and tumbled down again. I hoped it was friendly. Or more friendly than Kaiba, at least. It snarled in reply and shuffled it's limbs like it wanted to get away from me the closer I got as I came out from behind the pillar. "I'm here to help."

I really was, and if it recognized me Blue-Eyes should know I wasn't an enemy. Atem and I had sent our own monsters to fight at the dragon's side against other opponents a few times. Maybe it would remember that. Or maybe not. Instead of listening it bared its teeth like it was mad, looking every bit as angry as Kaiba did when Atem turned the tables on him in a duel. Blue-Eyes inhaled abruptly and snorted, its slitted nostrils rapidly filling and emptying while the light played across the surface of its uniformly colored eyes. With no pupils it was hard to tell exactly where the dragon was looking, but the shine of white across the glossy surface of each eyeball showed its line of vision as the monster's gaze jumped all around me. As it finally made eye contact the dragon moaned at me like it was in pain and then settled to lie limp on the floor.

Was it damaged somehow?

I looked over it closely. On careful inspection I could see something small and golden glinting from its body.

"What is that?" I questioned, squinting at the shining object in the low light. It looked like a stick, or a small pole was jutting out of Blue-Eyes's chest, right underneath where it's neck joined up with it's torso. With a coil of its body the dragon snapped at me, hunkered down to hide the thing from sight and went completely still. Other than a long low hiss it didn't seem inclined to do anything else as I stepped closer. Only then did I notice the slight movement of its limbs as it twitched its tail, its talons, its legs, its arms, its wings and flexed its jaw as though testing its limbs.

"Blue-Eyes?" I realized what it was doing just in time to react.

"GaROOOOOU!"

I leapt out of the way as it lunged forward with teeth and claws, missing me and bashing its head into the pillar that had moments ago been behind my back. It shook its head in agitation, shaking it around wildly and roared with rage. The snake-like nostrils at the tip of its snout flared, sniffing at the air while its body wheeled around the chamber looking for me.

"Woah!" I yelped as the while scales twisted around so that it could try and slash me again. Its wings arced outwards as it reared up onto its back legs, briefly giving me a better look at the golden object. It was the hilt of some kind of weapon! Something small. Maybe a knife, or a dagger?

Blue-Eyes howled in agony and I ran away from the gnashing teeth as it snapped down at me. Its next swipe sailed right over my head and struck deep into the stone wall behind me.

"Hey! Calm down!" I called out, watching it writhe and its long body curl backwards as it tried to yank its talon free from the wall. I think it was stuck. Now was my chance!

"And I bet I know what's making you so angry." I added to myself. I put on my game face as I charge back over toward the dragon's chest. It tried to bite me as I dodged under its jaws and I was really glad for the worn down threads on the underside of my shoes as I slipped under the arm Blue-Eyes had embedded into the wall and jumped for its torso.

"GaRrrrrOooUUuu!"

I'd never heard a dragon scream before, until now. It was as loud as thunder as I closed my hand around the gold hilt and tried to pull it free. It was elaborate; too elaborate for hunting or fighting with and covered in hieroglyphs and winged snakes. Blue-Eyes twisted and turned as I braced against it and pulled back with all my weight.

"Urgh! It won't budge!" It felt stuck. I couldn't move it even as I pushed back with my legs. I was almost thrown off as Blue-Eyes flailed and roared. "It's okay." I ground out through gritted teeth "I'm going to get it!"

With a huge rally of its strength Blue-Eyes stopped trying to pull itself free and instead lunged forward into the wall, powering through the stones and plaster to break straight through it with me hanging on to the dagger sticking out of its chest.

I hadn't known breaking out of a Soul Room was possible, but now I did. It was like clipping out of bounds in a video game. Outside was just space - endless star-studded space, exactly the same as I'd seen before ending up in Kaiba's Soul Room to begin with. The cosmos stretched out in every direction, still just as expansive and beautiful to look at as it had been the first time, but cold and unnerving.

"Pyzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt."

The hair on my neck stood on end as a static charge filled the air around me, drawing my eyes back to Blue-Eyes.

"Ah."

Without its trapped paw to distract it the dragon was staring at me narrowed eyed with its mouth slightly open as it collected a new blast of white lightning in its mouth. Its free arm brushed me away from its body, my sweaty hands slipping off the knife as Blue-Eyes punted me across the chamber and blasted at the ground where I fell. Rolling away wasn't the most dignified way to dodge but it got me away from the attack as it blew apart the stone floor, opening up another hole into outer space as the bricks fell away.

"Blue-Eyes, stop!" I shouted as it shot off another, and then another, chasing me with lightning as I ran around the edge of the room away from its breath. "Please!" I yelled, as the attacks opened up more and more gaps in the ceiling and walls, destroying any pillars that got in the way as I ducked and weaved between them. "I can help you!"

At that the dragon roared, angrier than ever and its next sweeping burst of white lighting cut a scar across half of the room, destroying the last three remaining pillars in one go. The room lurched ominously and loose stone started falling from the ceiling.

This was bad.

"Kurrrrrrrrrrrrchkkkkkkkk" A deep, low rumbling sound like mountains rubbing together made the room shake and begin to quake apart. The walls, ceiling and floor all pulled away from each other, separating into their own small platforms and levitating away from each other against the backdrop of black, star-filled space. The corridor that I'd come from unwound like there was nothing keeping it together anymore, leaving hunks of pillars and whole doors to float around on their own islands without anything to connect them. Within seconds the part of the floor I was standing on broke away and separated itself from the nearby stone bricks, creating a platform surrounded by nothingness as I scrambled back from the edge of the newly made ledge. The fragments of the chamber and corridor swirled around Blue-Eyes as it floated in the middle of the wreckage, occasionally beating its wings and throwing its head around the rubble in a rage like it was searching for me.

I ducked down as its eyes swept over in my direction, my platform floating just far enough above the dragon's head to shield me from view so long as I didn't stand up fully.

"What do I do now?" I murmured softly as a platform with a door and a few lumps of stone floated past me on a slightly quicker orbit that my platform's. I noticed too late as a large portion of a broken pillar followed after them, crashing into my island with enough force to send me flying over the edge.

"WAAAAAH-huh?"

Something grabbed my arm. Its grip was like a vice as it stopped my fall and slowly reeled me back up towards the platform, yanking me over the lip of the drop so I could get my breath back as my heart caught up to the great news that I wasn't going to die.

"Yugi." My rescuer greeted - or said in a way that was close to a greeting. It was more like a factual acknowledgement of my name.

I glanced upward as I panted, my pulse going a mile a minute. "Kaiba!"

Cold blue eyes stared down at me as Kaiba crossed his arms over his bared chest. The baggy red sleeves of a coat I'd never seen before slid against each other as he did so. The look he gave me was unimpressed, skeptical and filled with recognition - like he knew exactly who I was and thought I was being a pain. The expression alone told me that despite the weird Egyptian clothes, this was Kaiba. The real deal. I was sure of it.

"Thanks for the save!" I led with, not getting much of a reaction beyond a stoic stare. "It's good to see you."

"Why are we in space?" Kaiba immediately questioned with tight words, his narrowed eyes flashing around the cosmic backdrop before coming back to land on me.

"I honestly don't know." I laughed breathlessly. And if Kaiba didn't know either then I guessed no one would. "Wait." I added, glancing up and down Kaiba's body. "Weren't you a dragon?" He was the last time I'd seen him, at least.

"I was; yesterday." He replied shortly and for a second I thought he wasn't going to say anything else until "A lot's happened since then. Keep up."

"Right." I agreed, not really knowing what that was supposed to mean but going with it anyway.

"Pyzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt!"

"Watch out!" I called, ducking and pulling Kaiba down with me just in time as a blast of white lightning flew over our heads.

"What!?" Kaiba snapped, watching wide eyed as the platform floating behind us was decimated and crumbled away. All of the rubble was sucked downward in an arcing spiral as it was pulled toward the center of space.

"Kaiba, don't." I warned but he ignored me. He strode back to the edge he'd pulled me up from and glared downwards towards the direction the blast had come from.

"Pyzzzzzz-"

"Blue-Eyes, cancel attack." He shouted tersely with complete authority, yelling down to the dragon as it charged up another blast with sparks of white electricity gathering into a ball in its jaws.

"-Zzzzzzzt!"

Blue-Eyes didn't listen.

"Arg!" Kaiba grunted, holding his arms over his face to shield his eyes as another beam flew past his head, barely missing him. He stumbled backwards away from the ledge and glared down at the dragon furiously.

"Blue-Eyes! I said canc-"

"I don't think that's going to work." I interrupted, trying to break it to Kaiba gently that on this occasion his most precious monster probably wasn't on his side.

He sneered at me, apparently only accepting the idea as Blue-Eyes blasted yet another attack in his direction that flew over our platform in a burst of light and then belted out a deafening roar.

"GARRROOOOU!"

The pupils in Kaiba's wide eyes shrank and almost seemed to quiver in shock for a moment before he blinked them and his face settled back into its normal expression. Even by Kaiba's standards that was a weird reaction. "Yugi." He growled, glaring at me like this was my fault before I could ask him if he was okay. "What the hell is going on? Where are we?" He demanded.

"We're in-" I had to pause. I'd wanted to tell Kaiba we were in his Soul Room, but I wasn't sure if that was strictly true or not anymore.

"Forget it." Kaiba scoffed, not even giving me three seconds to think up how to finish my sentence. "This just a dream, it's not like it matters." He concluded.

I frowned at that. "This isn't a dream."

"What ever you say." He countered sarcastically, not believing me at all. I guess that is exactly what a dream person might say though. "Because talking dragons are so normal."

Talking dragons? I hadn't heard anything like that?

"GarooooouuuuuuUUUUUU!" Blue-Eyes roared out again, making Kaiba scowl and then turn his head away from his monster dismissively like he was ignoring it. It just sounded like a normal roar to me but the way Kaiba had gritted his teeth at the sound made me think twice. Was it something only he could hear?

"What's it saying?" I asked curiously.

"Some nonsense." And at that Kaiba gave me an icy look that told me not to push him anymore for an explanation before changing swiftly the topic to something else. "Where's its scar?" He demanded, glancing back down at Blue-Eyes from our higher vantage point and studying it with a possessive look. He seemed to think I knew more than him for some reason but I was equally confused by everything going on here. Even more so with his strange question.

"What scar?" I felt my eyebrows pinch into a frown.

His eyes narrowed and he stared grimly at the middle of Blue-Eye's body. "Blue-Eyes always has the same scar when it attacks me in a dream." Kaiba explained sourly. I glanced back at Blue-Eyes in confusion, and a little bit of suspicion. I'd just seen Kaiba's Blue-Eyes cards up close in his vault. None of them had any marks or tears - no defects that made sense to manifest itself in his subconscious as a scar - but Kaiba didn't have the full set. Did he feel guilty for ripping up Grandpa's Blue-Eyes? He'd never shown any sign of it when summoning his own onto the field or bragging about them. He'd never apologized to Grandpa either, or for any of the mean things he did to him. I wanted to ask, but as I opened my mouth the Blue-Eyes we were currently dealing with ended the conversation. It made Kaiba scowl as the dragon snapped up at him and then opened its jaws wide.

"It's going to attack again." I called out as Blue-Eyes lined up our platform in its sights again. It pointed its mouth towards us as sparks of lightning pulled together at the back of its throat.

"Pyzzzzzzzzzzzzz-"

"Come on." Kaiba ordered and casually strode to the edge of the platform. "We need to move." And with that he leapt over the side of the island into outer space.

"Kaiba!" Was he crazy!?

I ran to the edge and skidded to a stop, looking down to find Kaiba glaring back up at me like he was bored with his arms crossed over his chest on a platform that must have been floating by just beneath our own. "Get down here." He commanded.

"Okay." I nodded and then jumped down as well, setting off at a sprint to keep up with him as Kaiba quickly glanced around and ran off the edge of our new platform as the previous one exploded into a mess of lightning and stone.

"-Zzzzzzzt!"

We jumped and ran from island to island dodging through the wreckage like mascot characters in an old video game, ducking behind things and dodging off the sides in random directions to land on whatever platform was next passing by. I wasn't sure what Kaiba was thinking, until the constant barrage of attacks finally paused and it instead started roaring again in a rage. "We lost it." I noted, as it swung its head around and bellowed. All of our running around must have created blind-spots for Blue-Eyes, but it wasn't beat yet. It began firing its attacks off randomly, taking down platforms one at a time as it tried to find us. It took down an empty island, then a passing pillar and finally a platform with a door distantly behind us.

He glared at me for noticing, but Kaiba winced as the last one was destroyed, massaging his temple as splinters of wood replaced the door's orbit. That worried me.

"Are you okay?" I asked as we stopped running and jumping to catch our breath, panting behind the cover of a large metal door. These doors and the memories inside of them were part of who Kaiba was. Blowing them up couldn't be good for him, though from what I'd seen it was the memories of Atem's High Priest that would be taking the hit while were were on this side of the sealed door.

"It's nothing." He replied in short clipped words. The standoffish tone created a tense silence as we rested against the door and breathed heavily.

I was the one to interrupt the pause, but given who I was with that was to be expected. "Hey, Kaiba?" I glanced his way as I wiped a bit of sweat off my forehead with my sleeve. This wasn't really the time or place for my question, and I knew that, but after everything I'd seen in here hadn't I already decided it was time to start _making_ time for Kaiba? That began right now.

"What." He grunted disinterestedly, pulling his head back from peaking around the door we were squatting against.

"When we're both back in Domino again we should do something." I proposed evenly.

"You'll have to be more specific. I've got lots of 'somethings' to get done when I'm back." Kaiba replied indifferently.

I closed my eyes and scratched my chin with one finger as he completely missed my meaning. "I mean, meet up." I tried again.

"Sure. Let's do lunch." Was Kaiba's sarcastic response. It was like he didn't believe me.

"I'm serious." I pressed. "I know you've always liked Atem more than me, and I know it's hard with him being gone." Kaiba's clear blue eyes sliced back to me in an instant, focusing on me properly the moment I'd said Atem's name. I kept going, now that I had his attention for real. "Losing a friend is really tough. I understand that better than anyone." I added softly, looking down away from Kaiba's eyes as they somehow become more intense with every word. In fact, it had to be even tougher if you didn't have that many friends to begin with, like Kaiba. "I was a bad friend to you, to leave you to go through that alone." It was a confession and getting it off my chest made me feel so much lighter, like I could breathe fully for the first time in months. "Let me make it up to you."

"We're not friends." Kaiba stated matter-of-factly without missing a beat. "And mark my words, Yugi. If we meet up again, it'll be to duel." He shot back. "Not for some pity party."

"You like to duel. I get that." I replied carefully, trying to find a way to get through and have a real conversation with him even though he clearly didn't want to have one with me. "But can't you just turn it off for a minute?"

"I don't 'turn off'."

Something about the way he said that was strange. It wasn't boastful, or sarcastic, or angry and those were the three Kaiba settings I knew best. It was blunt and sounded almost a little resigned.

Maybe he really couldn't?

Alright then. That just meant I had to come at this from a different angle. Like Atem would have done.

"Okay. Then I accept your invitation." I declared, fixing Kaiba with my most determined look. I had to be firm. I couldn't let him deflect and fall back on insults to get out of it.

"What are you babbling about?" Kaiba sneered.

"You just invited me to lunch." I noted, feeling a smile pull at my mouth at the way his eyes became suspicious and irritated. "So I accept." I concluded. I could almost understand why Atem liked taunting him so much now, the look on Kaiba's face when he own words backfired on him was pretty priceless. "You've got a secretary, right? Just have them send me the time and dates when you're available."

"And what makes you think I'll actually do that?" He countered with eyes like icebergs. It was a question, rather than a rebuttal. It didn't seem like he was going to try and argue with me judging from his tone, but then again he hadn't put up much of a fight when I'd told him I'd be the one to duel Diva instead of him on live TV in front of a stadium of his fans either. Not backing down, facing him without blinking and channeling all of Atem's boldness and confidence had proven to be the best way to get him to agree to what I wanted. Now it was starting to look like that strategy could work outside of the dueling arena too.

"Because I'm going to come after you if you don't." I decided, speaking clearly and with conviction, just like I had at his exhibition duel at Kaiba Land. "You got that?"

"Is that another threat?" His face said he couldn't care less if it was, but he watched me very closely and gave himself away.

"Yeah, maybe it is!" I nodded, not giving in an inch. It was a threat of lunch, so not much of one by most people's standards, but then again Kaiba wasn't most people.

"You're overplaying your hand, Yugi." He cautioned me with an aloof expression. "I was surprised to see you'd grown a backbone when you started making demands in my stadium. It aroused my curiosity." Kaiba's voice heated up with a note of warning before getting slightly louder. "But don't think you can order me around. I learned intimidation tactics from the best and you're just a little barking dog in comparison."

Yeah. Now that I'd spent some time in this place I knew that too well – better than Kaiba could guess. "It's not my preferred method." I admitted steadily. "I just want things to be better between us, so I'm going to make that happen."

"Hnh." Kaiba grunted and turned away from me again to look back at his dragon. "Best of luck with that."

That sounded almost like acceptance and he went out of his way to pretend to ignore me as I smiled at him, which was a pretty solid confirmation. Kaiba's eyes went back to scanning the platforms and rubble that was floating all around us to blank me out, so I did the same.

"Oh! Hey, down there!" I pointed, spotting a familiar sight way below us on another section of floating stone. "That's the door that I came though." I called out as I turned back to Kaiba. "If we can get to it I bet it'll take us out of here."

"I'm not running from my own dragon." Kaiba shot back, his eyes suddenly shining brightly with anger in a way that I'd always found kind of creepy.

"Kaiba, we've got nothing to fight it with." I reasoned firmly, drawing my eyebrows to down to look just as serious as Atem would have. Kaiba checked under one of his coat's sleeves for a minute and then scoffed nastily for some reason. "We're sitting ducks here, and we're running out of islands." I frowned. Blue-Eyes didn't show any signs of letting up. At this rate it'd find us. It was just a matter of time until its process of elimination finally caught up to our position. Kaiba had to have realized that by now. "It's going to find us eventually." I warned. And we had no way of knowing how many of these doors could it destroy without harming Kaiba. Sitting by while it blew them up one by one to look for us could be even worse for him than running away.

"Tch." Kaiba scoffed, glaring down at his rogue dragon one last time before growling "Fine." He cast his eyes over to the door I'd pointed at and scowled at it with a look of dark calculation.

I nodded, appreciating that he was going to go along with my idea without much of a protest.

"Now we just have to figure out how to get over theeeeeeerrreeeeeeeeeee~" My sentence went long and high pitched as I felt Kaiba snatch up the back of my jacket and haul me up off my feet like a sack of potatoes. After watching him once toss Mokuba onto a helicopter I already knew exactly where this was going! "Kaiba, don't. Please!"

"You're the one that wants to get over there so badly." He deadpanned as the arm that was holding me up coiled backwards and his whole body lunged forward in a quick surge as he physically threw me off the platform.

"Not like this! Ahhhhhhhhhh!" Being tossed through space had to be one of the scariest things ever. My stomach bottomed out as I fell through through the void, reaching out my arms as far as they'd go as the platform with the gilded door got closer and closer.

"GARRRRROOOOOOUUUUUU." Blue-Eyes roared out, so I guess it had spotted me in the air but that was the least of my problems as the ledge I needed to grapple onto came speeding towards me almost too quickly for me to grab at.

"Umf!" It knocked the wind out of my chest as I landed, my upper body catching onto the ledge as my legs dangled off it into absolute nothingness.

"I made it! Thank goodness!" I shouted with a sigh, pulling myself up carefully until Kaiba's bark of "Move, now!" made me scramble onto the stone ledge quickly as possible. I just managed to roll out of the way as he backed up on the platform above me, sprinted to the edge and long jumped across the distance to somehow land in a dramatic crouch by my side like an action hero in a movie. All he was missing was an explosion and the effect would have been perfect.

"Pyzzzzzzzzzz-" It was like Blue-Eyes had read my mind and wanted to help out!

"Quick!" I shouted over the loud buzzing sound of the charge building up. In a rush we each grabbed one of the handles and pulled back the entrance to the double doors in unison which would have been cool if there was any time to take in our team coordination, but there wasn't. Kaiba almost wrenched his half of the door off its hinges as he yanked it back and I tried to copy, shifting mine open more than enough to escape through.

"ZZZZZZZT!"

With a shout we both jumped through the doorway, the shot fired at our heels blasting the door I'd opened loose from the wall and into the space station corridor as I ducked down to dodge it.

"Kaiba, are you okay?" I called out, glancing around to catch sight of him. Kaiba turned translucent as the ball of white lightning stuck him in the back and passed right through his body, like he was a ghost. "Kaiba!"

"Relax. I'm fine." He noted, seeming completely unaffected by the hit. "This dream was getting predictable anyway." He told me as his body was slowly converted into tiny balls of light that then evaporated into the air before my eyes.

"Kaiba, wait!"

And just like that I was left on my own again.

"GaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrooooooooooooOOUUUUUU!"

With Blue-Eyes.


	31. Chapter 31

**Kaiba**

The Yugi scene set in space was nonsensical but at least everything about it had been graphically sound. It'd been curiously high fidelity in comparison to most of my dreams; not that having dreams was common for me. Not in comparison to the nightmares. Sleeping for only twenty minutes at a time was supposed to discourage all of that but apparently that strategy wasn't working.

The following dream wasn't half as abstract, or as realistic.

Everything smelled like the subtle musky scent of Atem's room and the proportions of the setting were inexact and sloppy. The real throne room didn't look like this. The throne itself was too tall and the ceiling wasn't high enough. The columns that held up the room were overly long and the shadows from the sunlight coming through the main doors were all being cast in different directions. All of the finer details on the guards stationed around the room were wrong and the audio was off. If this environment was a KaibaCorp hologram I'd have fired the goon who'd passed it through quality assurance.

At least the view out of the palace doors was accurate. My brain had rendered that correctly.

The scenery was boring but the high vista gave it a cinematic air as the palace grounds stretched into the main city and then disappeared out into the desert on the far horizon. It didn't measure up to the view from my office at KaibaCorp but since building skyscrapers wasn't on Atem's to-do list it made for a decent alternative. I could see his whole kingdom from here; just like I could see all of Domino from my desk if I turned around.

I preferred working with my back to the city. It made it easier to concentrate on what I was doing.

Looking out across Domino just irritated me, watching the pedestrians milling around like insignificant insects on the street below and knowing that the only person worth keeping an eye out for wasn't ever going to be down there no matter how long or hard I searched the crowd for his ridiculous hair. The closest I'd get was Yugi's and like everything else about Yugi even that was a lesser imitation of the Pharaoh's. I could pick out the difference between the two of them from orbit.

"Kaiba?" Atem's voice started saying. He hadn't been in the room a second ago but he was now.

The Pharaoh walked me backwards and pushed me down to sit on his throne before leaning to my mouth and kissing me demandingly. His fingers threaded through mine as he perched on me, actually looking like a demi-god as the sunlight seemed to soak into him and make him radiate energy like a solar panel. In a small circular motion he rubbed a knuckle against the underside of my jaw and I opened my mouth against his, allowing his tongue to slip inside. He was really into it for a guy who'd told me that he didn't want us messing around his palace in plain sight.

We parted to catch our breath. Atem looked out across the view and hummed contentedly, like he was taking it all in.

I glanced around his throne room and then taunted, "What happened to keeping things formal?"

"No one else is here." He practically purred. The tone of his voice was extremely distracting. So much so it distracted my blood out of my brain where I usually liked to keep it and redirected it somewhere far less useful.

And he was right. The guards that had been lining the throne room at the start were gone. It was just him and me now. That was suspiciously convenient.

Was this going to be one of 'those' dreams?

With a sweep of his quick pink tongue he leaned down to my chest and licked around my heart as if mapping out a territory for invasion, planting a kiss like a flag in the middle. It made me shiver, but despite the unfamiliar texture of his tongue on my skin I wasn't going to lie and pretend it wasn't exciting too.

I didn't have lecherous dreams like this very often. Was I just supposed to go with it, or try and snap myself out? Irritating as it was there was a logic to having one now. I'd brought this upon myself after letting my body go on that unregulated hormonal tangent with Atem back in the bath.

As far as those kind of dreams went this wasn't a bad set-up. The throne room setting was provocative and gave me the same sharp thrill I always got from flaunting the authority of anyone or anything that tried imposing rules on me. Doing anything in a place like this would definitely leave a mark on Atem's memory too. I'd like to see the Pharaoh try to reign over his lackeys straight-faced after doing what we'd done in the bath in here.

_"Kaiba...__ wake up."_

Despite my name being said in Atem's voice his mouth didn't move from kissing my chest. He kept going at it like he was on a deadline.

It felt like the instruction had come from everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. That figured. Just when the dream was starting to get interesting.

"Our times up." I told the Atem sat on the throne with me as he lifted up my arm and started kissing my wrist.

_"Whatever happened to only sleeping once you were dead?"_

"Shut up..." I growled back.

My throat was dry. It threw off the tone of my voice. Even to my ears the words just sounded hoarse and 'grumpy', as Mokuba would put it. Damn cigarettes.

Waking up was such a pain. The warmth of the bed and smell of Atem's stuff nearly got me back to sleep. I didn't think the ancient Egyptians even had beds like these but I wasn't gonna complain about it.

A breeze from the window of the Pharaoh's room crawled over the skin at the base of my neck. I pulled the sheet further up my body to block it out, until something that I vaguely acknowledge was probably Atem snared the fabric and stopped me. Whatever. The room was hot so it wasn't overly annoying and for once I still felt relaxed enough to fall back to sleep if I wanted to. That was rare. Especially since something was softly but insistently messing with my hand.

"Kaiba."

I opened my eyes half-way, entirely uncommitted to the idea of fully waking up despite Atem's loud mouth.

For a moment I just lay there like an idiot and blinked uncomprehendingly at the impossible sight of the Pharaoh as he lay across from me on the bed. His blazing crimson eyes were staring at me intently while he continued rubbing his thumb against the inside of my wrist and kissing the heel of my hand like he was about to bite down and drink my blood.

The intensity of his stare made my pulse pick up.

"Were you just watching me sleep?" I questioned as suspiciously as physically possible. "And why are you making out with my hand?" The sight was appealing on a basic carnal level, but weird.

His lips quirked against my skin and I felt his affirmative hum vibrate through my wrist as he lifted his mouth away from it to speak. "To wake you up."

I stared at him. Was I still dreaming? The room was correctly proportioned, so being awake was my best bet but the Pharaoh could make anything around him seem surreal with just a single look or a couple of words.

"My people believe that waking a sleeping person too suddenly risks causing their soul to become separated from their body." He explained, lowering my arm back to lie flat on the bed and smoothing down the sleeve of the coat he'd given me so it hid the cigar burn that was closest to my pulse point. That one was otherwise impossible to hide without wearing something with full length sleeves – just as Gozaburo had intended for it to be.

"You'd be the expert on that." I countered. The bed sheets fell down my body to pool in my lap as I sat up slowly and pulled my arm away from him so he couldn't play with it any more.

Just the idea of him lying there with a full view of the burns singed into me made my skin crawl. They marked me as weak. I despised them for it. I hated even more that out of all the possible people in the world, it was the Pharaoh, my rival, the King of Games that had seen them. Even Mokuba hadn't, though if he did it would be equally bad for completely different reasons.

"Yes." Atem replied, but there was none of the energy in it that came as part of our usual banter. Instead his tone was empty. "I don't recommend it." He added in a low voice, looking away from me to stare out across his room.

"Tch." I shouldn't have said that, given his reaction, but at least the slip up confirmed that I really was awake. Piercing the Pharaoh's armor of smugness was usually a cause for celebration but I hadn't done it deliberately this time and snubbing him by accident was honorless and amateur. I rubbed the grit out of my eyes left over from sleeping and glanced around the room as I tried to wake myself the hell up so I wouldn't make any additional mistakes.

Looking at the window I estimated we'd slept through most of the afternoon.

The sun was still up but it was getting darker outside, or as dark as it ever got here. Thanks to the overly bright moon and stars the night sky of Atem's afterlife had a strange luminous quality. The light far exceeded the polluted skyline of Domino or any other modern day city but if we were gonna spend whatever was left of the day looking for Dark Renewal in every shadowy corner of this overgrown sandcastle then that worked to our advantage.

"I'm getting up." He announced authoritatively, shifting to sit over the side of the bed and standing up with a solid flex of his well-defined leg muscles. The late afternoon sunlight made his skin shine like burnished bronze. Now that I was used to it my Pharaoh hologram was gonna look distractingly anemic by comparison the next time I dueled it. Atem strode over to a large bowl and poured out water from a pitcher into it before leaning down and washing his face in the makeshift basin. His long fingers traced the sharp aristocratic angles of his cheekbones as he rubbed some sort of cream from a nearby pot into the hollows under his eyes before dipping two of the linen rags into the water.

I couldn't just lie around watching him all day like a useless ornament. Not when there was a duel to win.

I called up the interface of my Duel Disk while he dunked the cloth down deeper to soak it through. "Dark Renewal's still in effect." I noted. That wasn't a shocker. One way or another we always ended up doing everything ourselves. By that logic sending the Pharaoh's toadies to find this magical coffin was set up to fail from the very start.

Atem glanced back at me over his shoulder as he pulled out one of the towels he'd soaked and wrung it out before dabbing it along his neck, behind his ears and across his forehead, lifting his crown up to get at the area underneath. "It's time to join the search."

His expression was determined but his trademark confidence was misplaced. He was forgetting a big factor currently working against him 'joining the search'. I didn't have enough data to judge if he was claustrophobic or cleithrophobic, but it didn't matter; like hell that freak out he'd had back in the cave was a one-off. Throwing himself down any tunnel or into a catacomb was gonna give him a punishing wake up call.

"You better have a plan of attack by now." I grunted, testing if he'd figured that out for himself yet. Limits existed to be smashed, but ignoring them completely was idiotic.

"You mean to say that you don't?" Atem turned back to me after wiping his face dry. "Kaiba, I'm disappointed." He taunted with a goading expression that set my teeth on edge.

"I don't live here, unlike you." I sneered back. I didn't feel awake enough yet for our usual repartee. "And for the record, anyone stupid enough to intrude into my mansion would regret it. Instantly." I'd lined the walls of the Kaiba manor with enough state of the art solid vision projectors to summon in a Blue-Eyes into every room. Some were too small for it to maneuver around it, but my dragons didn't need much mobility to bite down and rip a limb off any snake that tried to get at Mokuba or me where we slept. "My new security system takes no prisoners." And if that failed I now had a small army of ex-black ops guys on my private payroll to finish the job. They'd paid for themselves already when we'd cornered Diva. Now I just had to get Mokuba to stop referring to them as 'the Kaiba Troopers'.

Without losing any of his confident smugness the Pharaoh picked up the second cloth he'd wetted and started running it through his hair, teasing the sharp tips with his fingers and polishing up the strands in well-practiced motions that made the crimson-black notes even glossier than normal. If that's what he'd been trying to do to mine then it was no wonder he'd messed it up.

"So what's the play then?" I demanded.

Atem paused mid-motion, wearing a thoughtful expression like he was considering his hand in the middle of a duel. "I want to visit Seto and see what can be done for him."

It didn't matter that the fake was also called 'Seto' by some contrived coincidence, hearing my name come out of his mouth was irritating. Why bother anyway, if the guy was still completely out of it.

"By then Karim, Shada and Shimon will have assembled for evening prayers in the temple." Atem added, reanimating as he pulled the towel across his hair, the nonsensical fronds springing back upright to return their usual position after each bit he toweled. "I'll find them there and gather their reports."

That at least made sense. We needed to know where they'd already looked if we were gonna be most efficient. There was no point in backtracking over old territory if it had already been checked out.

"Then I'll meet you and we'll begin the hunt together." He continued, giving his hair one last sweep before putting the towel back down. "Unless you want to come with me?"

"Tch. Pass." Come with him to visit my fake? No. To the temple, for prayers? Also no.

They weren't my gods, so why bother. I didn't subscribe to any of that nonsense, apart from maybe a closeted worship of the ruthless power of raw capitalism. The knowing smirk Atem shot my way probably meant he wasn't being serious, even as he asked his follow-up question. "What will you do in the meantime?"

"Find something halfway edible." I scowled, already knowing that was going to be a pain. Atem's eyebrow rose wryly and he opened his mouth to argue. "That isn't fruit." I added pointedly before he could get a word in.

Like I wanted any more fiber in my diet right now. I'd cut off my nutritional intake ahead of time so I wouldn't have to find out what counted as a washroom in this backwards dimension, but I hadn't planned for my excursion to last any longer than the length of a duel. What should have been a few hours was now days and standing up too quickly was starting to give me a head rush. It was time to bite the bullet and find something to eat. My mental map of this place also wasn't complete yet. Charting more of it out while I tracked down a kitchen would be a solid use of my time in case I ever wanted to holographically recreate the setting once I was back in the real world.

"And get my clothes." I concluded. Unlike the Pharaoh I wasn't going to stand around half-naked for a minute longer than I had to. My Duel Disk repair kit, spare parts and cigarettes were all still inside of my coat pocket and my briefs would definitely be dry by now.

Atem lowered his eyebrows and gave me a contemplative look that made me grit my teeth. "What?" I hissed.

He blinked at me slowly before answering with a shrug and walking towards the smaller room that was attached to his chamber. "I doubt that'll be possible." He called back.

"Why? Where are they?" I demanded, suspecting sabotage even before Atem could reply.

A long length of bright red material the same as the coat he'd fished out for me was in his hands as he emerged from the adjoining room. "The servants will have taken them away to be washed by now." With a dramatic spin he pulled it through the air, making the heavy fabric flutter and fan out as he tugged the new cloak around his shoulders with a flex of his biceps.

Great.

"They're dry-clean only." I sneered, sarcastically.

"I'm sure the servants will check the labels for the washing instructions." Atem parried as he slipped on a pair of sandals onto his feet. Next to them was a second set clearly intended for me. I suspected they were my fake's cast off since they were stiff with embroidered winged snakes and one look at his living quarters told me that guy had that kind of thing on his mind.

"They don't have labels, they're custom made." I snapped back. What did he take me for, some mall walking window shopper? And how would his servants know what the symbols meant? Even if they did it wasn't like they'd invented the solvent necessary for dry cleaning yet.

Oh, right. He was being a smart-ass.

"Funny."

He smirked back smugly, then softened his features up in a way that made me feel uncomfortably warm.

Other than a few pippy one liners and gloating puns I'd never noticed the Pharaoh had much of a sense of humor. I was reassessing that now. It was mellow and always came out of the left field but it existed. Monarchs weren't famous for being a comedic breed of people and Atem clearly wasn't going to make history as 'the funny Pharaoh', but he wasn't completely humorless either. It was a weird discovery and he was making it even weirder by staring at me with the strange expression on his face. It looked contented, which was ridiculous given everything going on.

"What's with that look?" I deadpanned.

It cleared up instantly, hardening into something goading and challenging that I found infinitely more comfortable to look at. "What look?" He parried, becoming totally unreadable and self-satisfied.

I rolled my eyes at him. "It's like you got dealt a perfect hand at the start of a duel." I sneered. That was the best thing I could compare it to. I shouldn't have bothered asking. It's not like it mattered if the Pharaoh started pulling stupid faces. His eyebrows both perked up in surprise and then pulled together into a thoughtful, analytical expression. Almost like he'd just begun to figure something out. I refused to be simpering enough to ask about it.

"Forget it." I stood up slowly and straightened out my ridiculous cosplay. If he wanted me to know then he'd tell me and if he didn't then it wasn't my business, and I didn't care.

"Alright." He replied as Atem blinked the question away. The Pharaoh shrugged at me and then got busy preening again as he tucked the part of his cape that hung around his neck underneath the larger of his two necklaces and slipped the Puzzle on over his head. I had to hand it to him that the silhouette he cut was striking as he marched over the doorway; aggravatingly regal and full of his signature pomp.

"Kaiba."

Atem paused as he placed his hands on the door handles and turned back to me as I walked over to follow him out of the room.

"Things may happen very quickly after we find Andro Sphinx." He remarked thoughtfully as he lingered on the threshold of his room, not going anywhere despite the action plan he'd just outlined for me. "Once we defeat him Anubis will have no minions left to defend himself with."

Like I wasn't already aware of that.

"I know." I crossed my arms. "Thanks for the useless reminder, Pharaoh." In fact I was looking forward to it. Anubis might have only one Death Counter verses our two but that wouldn't matter once I set my dragons on him and kept blasting until he was nothing but a smouldering pile of ash.

"And after that-" Atem added slowly.

"-We part ways. I get it." I cut in, forcing the Pharaoh to shut his big mouth half-way through his sentence. I was sick of hearing about it.

After hesitating at the doors for three seconds he glanced pensively back at me over his shoulder. "Yes. We part ways." He repeated slowly, quietly enough that it seemed like he was saying it to himself. The Pharaoh turned back to me, locking onto my eyes with his like they were laser pointers. "And you're still willing to continue this even knowing that?" He asked, sounding as serious as a heart attack.

"Tch." Where was this coming from and just who did he think he was dealing with? His dedication to playing Schrödinger's Pharaoh was impressive, but even Atem wasn't deluded enough to actually believe I was just gonna surrender and quit trying to change his mind, or that I'd spend the rest of my life moping around Domino like a lovesick dolt because we'd made out a few times. That would be stupid. He had another thing coming if he thought I was going to back out now and judging from the tentative look on his face he knew that as well as I did.

"You're stalling." I called him out on it drinking in the way it made him look shocked, as if he thought he was unreadable. "Get on with it, Pharaoh. You're blocking the door."

He blinked at me owlishly with those crimson eyes of his that now matched his cape. It made him look like an idiot, which made me seem like an even bigger idiot by association.

"Before this battle with Anubis ends..." He began before cutting out and putting on his mid-duel face like he was having to play the words out one by one onto a Duel Disk. "Before you return to your world, I want to..."

Atem paused again and frowned. "No. Nevermind."

"What?" I demanded. Whatever this was it had better be good.

"It's nothing." He countered and turned back the door, about to run off without having the guts to finish what he was mulling over.

"It's clearly not 'nothing'." I noted, unimpressed by his sudden shy act.

"It's a conversation for another tim-"

"-Spit it out already." What could possibly deserve all of this pointless stammering?

He glared at me for interrupting him and his voice heated up to match. "I was going to say that I want us to try going further, you impatient oaf."

I stared at him deadpan. Going 'further'? "Going further how?"

He must have figured there was some cognitive disconnect there. "Going further than what we did earlier." A flush of red stained his cheeks that looked totally opposed to his determined expression and his whole body went rigid like he was about to summon in a monster as he pointed between our bodies with his finger.

Wait a minute. Did he mean...?

"You want to do what?!" I yelled.

At just the idea of it my body went exactly as stiff as his now was.

"Right now?!" This was damn sudden! And why bring it up so soon? We'd only just started doing anything at all!

He shook his head at that, but even after replying "No. Not now" my pulse still picked up and began racing just like it had in the pool. This time the adrenaline rush felt differently calibrated - not excited; more like my body thought someone was about to try and attack me.

I scoffed at my own reaction. It was such nonsense, especially after what we'd already done in the bath and the dumb dream I'd just had. I pulled my voice back to a normal volume and set my expression to match. I had to make sure I was understanding this right and this wasn't some poorly-timed translation error or cultural misunderstanding.

"Just to be clear; you're propositioning me for -" my brain stalled at how to get the word out of my mouth. "-'that'?"

His eyebrow perked up quizzically and the most moronic staring competition in history lasted a few seconds as we just watched each other like fools, until slowly Atem nodded.

"We don't have to if-"

"-It's fine!" I barked back, interrupting whatever 'out' he was about to throw at me like I was a coward who needed an excuse not to rise to his challenge. His eyebrows jumped up his forehead and he pulled a face.

"It's fine." I repeated, more evenly.

This was happening fast. Maybe too fast, as ridiculous as the very idea of anything so fundamentally basic outpacing me was, but like hell I'd ever allow the Pharaoh to overtake me. I could take anything that he could dish out!

"Our time together is a scarce commodity." Atem added with a lack of surety that didn't suit him as he shifted his weight between his feet. It was like he thought he had to justify the request to me. He didn't. I could understand the reason why he was bringing this up so damn quickly, now that I'd had a second to think about it. "I want to experience this with you, while I can." He concluded quietly.

I wasn't totally comfortable with the idea of doing 'that', but I wasn't against it either, and I got his point. We didn't have days, or weeks or months to get to that point slowly. We had the length of this duel, and that was it.

It was hardly a grounds for 'romance', but doing it wasn't really about romance - just two different sets of biological components slotting together. Worthless anxiety aside, statistically speaking I was around the right age to be experiencing it for the first time, and despite him being another guy my years of prior association with Atem made him a good candidate so with the question of eligibility answered that just left the mechanical details...

"How do we decide the positions?" I interrogated sarcastically. "Coin flip?"

"Hmm." Atem looked unsure but injected some confidence into his voice anyway as he came up with an answer of "We'll do what feels best. Whatever comes naturally."

What a load of bull. I couldn't imagine playing the socket would come to either of us 'naturally' when being the plug was clearly the stronger, more tactically sound option.

"Tch. So we'll just figure it out?" So much for the masterful strategies of The King of Games.

Atem chuckled at that for some reason and taunted me with a mild smile that made me blush humiliatingly if the sudden heat on my face was any indicator. "I believe we will." He agreed with a slow blink, looking too eager not to be annoying.

Lewd bastard. I'd sooner draw straws than willingly waste a single moment of my valuable time thinking about something like that.

Snapping "Well then it's a good thing there's still an opponent hiding out around here to beat" only made his face look more irritating as he kept smiling at me like the expression was going out of style. "Until then keep your mind on winning the damn duel." I bit out, scowling as my face got even hotter at the short laugh he threw my way before turning on his heel.

"I always do, Kaiba." He taunted and swept out through the doors in front of me with his cape flying behind him.

**Isis**

Having vanished away for hours the Pharaoh and Other Seto reappeared just as swiftly as they had dissipated. I felt the Pharaoh's presence shortly before I heard his light footfalls in the hallway ahead, accompanied by Seto Kaiba's somewhat hoarse voice. It was no surprise to me when our paths crossed in the courtyard that separated the royal quarters of the semi-divine from the rest of the palace.

There was a saying that gossip traveled faster than lice and the slightly ruddy hue painting the Other Seto's face as he reemerged from the Pharaoh's private chambers was sure to prompt interesting conversations behind closed doors between the servants and guards who were inclined to such talk. For the last two generations the palace had known little of the historically tantalizing scandals that came to define the reigns of the Pharaohs of the past. Given that, I imagined the curious few would be even more interested than one would expect in the rare thrill of new born royal gossip.

Dressing Seto Kaiba in clothing more suitable to the palace did nothing to disguise his outlandishness as the two of them conversed in our guest's foreign tongue before the Pharaoh finally gestured off in the direction of the Mansion of Life. At my steady approach both young men turned to me and Seto Kaiba volleyed a sharp look in my direction, perhaps to hide his obvious embarrassment behind hostility. Without another word he stalked off down the hallway in the direction the Pharaoh had indicated with the march of a general to a battlefield, coat billowing behind him.

"My Pharaoh," I greeted, respectfully lowering my head as I did so. He paused, staying still as I neared him instead of simply returning the gesture and leaving to pursue Seto Kaiba. I took this as invitation to an audience of some sort. "You look well for having rested." I observed.

Already the variety of injuries that he had accrued were beginning to heal and fade. His color was brighter and the pristine linens revived his regality, though they already bore signs of creases as if something large had laid on the material for a long amount of time. I chose not to indulge in speculation as to the nature of that object.

The Pharaoh nodded back, "Thank you, Isis. You're looking better as well." He commented and I smiled at his kind words. A clean new robe and tamed hair could indeed set to right even the most egregious of wrongs and now that I had expunged the last remaining traces of Sphinx Teleia's filth from my body I felt renewed.

For the moment after we merely stood quietly, the Pharaoh neither moving away to continue elsewhere nor speaking to perpetuate the conversation. Instead he remained silent, weighing something behind his eyes as his brows drew together in concentration. I waited quietly while he rallied his thoughts.

"Isis." He glanced downwards pensively.

"Yes, my Pharaoh?" I wondered what was bothering him.

His eyes roamed the richly painted wall next to us before finally flicking back to mine, meeting them with a probing intensity. "When I lived, I thought nothing of it -" A line on his forehead creases slightly as he continued his thought. "-And even once arriving here in the afterlife, I saw it as little more than a special sort of friendship..." A curious statement, but not one that had been selected thoughtlessly judging from the Pharaoh's troubled expression. "But I now know that the way you look at Mahad is more than that." He concluded, keeping my gaze steadily trapped beneath his own. If his words were a question or statement was unclear, but the expectation of my honesty shone through his expression with perfect clarity.

"Yes." I replied truthfully. "It is so."

We had not thought to burden the Pharaoh or the rest of the priesthood with our private happenings and as younger people not yet familiar with such life experiences, Seto, the Pharaoh and Mana had remained largely oblivious to the feelings that Mahad and I shared, but our veiled affection for each other had not gone totally unnoticed by the older and wiser of the palace's denizens.

"I regret that I didn't recognize it sooner." The Pharaoh admitted.

Once more I was humbled by my Pharaoh. "Often it is difficult to see something if one has no knowledge of what they are looking for." I gently assured him. It seemed that now, with the advent of his growing fondness for Seto Kaiba, that the Pharaoh recognized the closeness that Mahad and I shared for what it truly was.

"Why have the two of you kept it a secret?" He asked curiously, his eyes darkening as they narrowed slightly as if confused or very mildly concerned.

I felt my hand softly clench into a gentle fist as I held it over my heart, searching for a way to explain our decision.

Our courtship had barely begun before the fateful events that lead to the end of he Pharaoh's short reign. To have it be made possible here, in the afterlife; it was my greatest wish granted. Mahad and I both felt as though it was a blessing precious and fragile enough to be worthy of disguise.

"It was ours." I began. Already I knew that while my short explanation was heart-felt, it was also too tentative for the Pharaoh to full understand as he regarded me silently as though waiting for me to elaborate. "Our affections needed not concern anyone else besides the two of us." I tried once more. "We wished to come to know each other in this new way privately, at a pace of our choosing."

At that the Pharaoh's quizzical expression slowly eased in one of comprehension. "I understand." He quietly replied. For a moment his head turned away from mine and he blinked, his face looking wistful in the momentary lapse of confidence.

"Kaiba's been my rival for years, but I feel as if I'm only now coming to know him." The Pharaoh frowned pensively, glancing back the way the Other Seto had departed as though to check the subject of his thoughts had not appeared at the mention of his name. "Is it selfish of me to want to deepen our connection, even though I know it's fated to end?"

"My Pharaoh?" I questioned, wondering where this belated line of questioning had grown from.

"Accepting defeat isn't in Kaiba's nature." The Pharaoh noted, his tone frustrated and respectful in equal measure as he spoke his thoughts aloud. "Until the very second before he returns to his world he'll believe without a doubt that it's possible for him convince me to return with him." He met my eyes with his own, steadfast and determined as though preparing himself to face down an answer that he did not want to hear. "Am I unjust for seeking to strengthen a bond I know that I'm destined to break?"

"I cannot say." I replied humbly, unable to answer that question. "Weighing the selfishness of a thing is difficult in matters of the heart." I observed neutrally, holding the Pharaoh's stare. The heart had a strange way of changing things; becoming both heavier and lighter than the Feather of Truth many times in a single lifetime and forever shifting the delicate balance of everything around it.

"So then, it's true." He concluded, drawing a solid thread out from the diplomatic words I had unsuccessfully attempted to weave. I was not the Pharaoh's champion, High Priest, nor Vizier. Dispensing such wisdom was not something made familiar to me by the expectations of my current station. All I had was the prudence of honesty and so I began again.

"Had the Millennium Necklace shown me a vision of Mahad's fate I believe that our courtship would have continued regardless." I offered solemnly, my words drawing back the Pharaoh's consideration from the well of shallow remorse it had fallen into. A dark and slender eyebrow hitched once more in rueful intrigue. "Each and every moment that we shared together was a gift to treasure." I explained and smiled at the memory of our early courtship. It was such a shy and strange thing. "A gift that's value was beyond the cost." I reflected sincerely, knowing I would not have traded a single second of our time away despite the heavy toll of Mahad's loss.

I lowered my eyes to the Pharaoh's feet respectfully so my manner was seemingly neither brash nor impertinent as I risked a question that was not my place to ask. "How is it that the Other Seto makes you feel, my Pharaoh?"

Fully fixated on me now the Pharaoh's eyebrows rose slightly in surprise and then pursed together across the bridge of his nose as he carefully contemplated the question.

"Kaiba makes me feel-" The first of his words were swift and sure before abruptly halting. His focus turned inward, his eyes becoming distracted for a mere moment as he searched his heart for the truest of words just as I had not a moment ago. "He makes me feel alive." He replied, slowly, deliberately, each word heavily weighed with meaning and selected with a great deal of care. "More than alive." He settled on.

"When he returns to his home will that feeling fade?" I questioned gently, already knowing the answer. I could see it in the Pharaoh's face.

Without the Other Seto things would be peaceful and orderly again but the downturn of the Pharaoh's lips and pinching at the corner of his eyes told me that despite the sizable disruption that Seto Kaiba represented, the loss of his presence would still be felt keenly by our young Pharaoh.

"Yes." He conceded simply.

"Will it have been worth it?" I pressed.

"Yes." There was no hesitation in his reply this time. He announced it with the surety of a royal proclamation. "In the beginning it was strange, seeing him again." He noted. "I didn't know if I should've felt joy or anger. His actions left me conflicted." He admitted and the Pharaoh's expression turned inward once more. After a long pause he managed a small smirk. "But now, no matter what happens, I'm glad for the time we've spent together."

A burden lifted from his demeanor. He filled with confidence anew, once more becoming the commanding Pharaoh of Egypt and no longer a confused, conflicted young man.

"Thank you for your council, Isis."

I bowed to the Pharaoh, recognizing the unspoken end to the short conversation.

"Of course, my Pharaoh."

With a belated smile he turned from me, stepping backward before reorienting himself to face the direction of the healing chambers. With a final appreciative nod he departed, his steps light but purposeful. I turned to continue on my way as the smells of the evening meal grew thick on the air and tantalizing my tongue with their promise.

The Pharaoh was most welcome to my council, but I was not as adept at giving it as Mahad or Shimon. I wondered if I had managed to provide the answers he sought as he strode out of my sight. Throughout the conversation an air on unease had lingered around him and I hoped I had lightened it as I continued my walk in the very direction that Seto Kaiba had escaped in and brushed aside the silk tapestries that hung closed over the entrance to the Mansion of Life.

The palace had many kitchens and bakeries, enough to service the many priests who dwelt within its walls. Though it had once been normal for the evening meal to be served individually to each of us on a small table in chambers better befitting the rank of priest, the Pharaoh had done away with that tradition upon his glorious return to the afterlife. Now we were invited to feast here with him in the Mansion of Life, where only the royal family had once dined. This was not the only break from tradition. The Pharaoh had re-imagined meals as a communal affair, seated on benches on either side of a single long slab of stone. It was a more intimate way of sharing a meal and one of only a few changes the Pharaoh had suggested to daily life upon his return. He had not shared the origin of the idea and it was not the place of any priest to question the novelty or reasoning for the Pharaoh's wishes, so we had accepted it without explanation.

A selection of lower ranking priests and Shimon sat about the room, a tension in some of their faces that I could not place until one glanced over his shoulder and by following his eyes I spotted the object of their cloaked agitation. Seto Kaiba lingered in the background, leaning against a wall at the edge of the room like a human obelisk and carefully observing everything and everyone within it as if he were a large and brightly plumed vulture. His near predatory leer was faintly disturbing as he repelled all attendants who proved bold enough to chance approaching him with a sharp look. Despite rejecting their offerings he also refused to make any motions towards the table, even as I met his gaze questioningly. He scowled back me for doing so, apparently hungry but patient in equal measure. Perhaps he was hoping that if he proved intimidating enough everyone else would vacate the chamber so he could dine in private. The ploy may not have been as unbelievable as it outwardly seemed, I noted, as in the periphery of my vision I noticed the tenser of the two lesser priests hastily leave the room.

Shimon smiled at me as I entered, appearing skillfully nonchalant as he ignored the onlooker, rinsed his hands in a small bowl of water and reached to the center of the table toward a plate of dried waterfowl. I respectfully inclined my head to him and found a seat on the bench to this right side.

"Good afternoon." I greeted, pulling a plate toward me and glancing around at the table's offerings. It seemed I had missed the first course and other than the hushed sounds of the servants collecting old dishes and replacing them with new offerings there was no noise to speak of. None of the muted conversation or agreeable ambience that had come to accompany our meals. The silence was thick enough to cut and I suspected it would remain that way until Mahad was himself again and the various interlopers within the palace walls were gone.

"We have a guest." Shimon stated on that subject, maneuvering a lump of roasted pigeon into his mouth with his hand.

"It seems so." I agreed, glancing backwards at the Other Seto. While I didn't question the Pharaoh's judgement it was impossible to think of Seto Kaiba as being anything other than an incredibly strange choice of potential consort. They were not a sensible, nor a logical match. From what I observed the two could hardly be more different and yet if the conversation I had just shared with the Pharaoh was any indication his feelings were deepening regardless. I sighed, finding the feeling of Seto Kaiba's eyes on me quite off-putting as I poured a cup of wine for myself.

"The resemblance is uncanny." Shimon chuckled affably as he watched me begin to gather small servings from the nearby plates and collect them on my own.

It was. Despite all the ways that they varied Seto Kaiba's current expression was indeed very close to one of the High Priest's own in this moment. He was looking at the plates with a face that spoke of disinterest but his eyes glinted with the same half-starved ferocity that our Seto's often shone with after a lengthy day of expending his energy. I gently shook my head as I gathered together a plate of the various dishes I knew the High Priest was most partial to. Perhaps they would tempt Seto Kaiba as well and end his staring.

A small silence descended as I went about my selection until Shimon cleared his throat to speak. "Try this." He advised. With a waggle of his finger he called one of the servants forward; an attractive young woman whose shape was ample. He gesturing for her to fill a nearby cup with a beer that I belatedly recalled Seto was rather partial to. It tended to make him more brazen and less interested in bothering to check his tone or volume. I didn't appreciate the drink for that, but Seto enjoyed it nevertheless. Patting the servant girl on the rear as she retreated he then turned and offered the beaker to me.

I smiled at Shimon gratefully as I received the cup. He had realized my intent so quickly. His insight in handling powerful young men was an ever-impressive one that manifested itself in wonderful and surprising ways.

With the offering assembled beckoned the servant girl who Shimon had just patted on the rear to my side and nodded in the Other Seto's direction as I handed the food and drink to her, clearly intending for her to close the distance toward Seto Kaiba. Seeing this the Other Seto swallowed thickly and leveled a dangerous expression at the quaking servant girl. It was difficult to judge who was less pleased with my command as she shakily crossed the temple floor toward him. She kept her gaze to the floor as she offered him the plate and beaker. From my side Shimon observed as Seto Kaiba's leer sliced from the servant to me and then back again. The remarkable feeling of trying to feed a feral or distrustful animal struck me as he warily watched me for a very long few seconds and then grunted in acceptance. Ignoring the servant entirely, he swiped the plate and cup from her hands and waved her off.

With the strange exchange completed I turned my attention to the table and could finally begin my own meal in earnest, making mild conversation with Shimon as we discussed how best to order the search for Mahad's casket and other matters of state that were less dire. After perhaps ten minutes I risked glancing backwards toward our guest. Our Seto ate with a single-minded efficiency that had begun to turn my stomach as I was witness to it in recent months. This Other Seto picked at his food like a small bird, inspecting each portion closely before slowly pecking away at it as though expecting it to be poisoned.

Even in spite of his overt suspicions there was a peacefulness to the proceedings that lasted another few minutes before it was suddenly broken.

In an abrupt rush of pale fabric Mana sprinted into the room carrying a crumpled piece of papyrus, her hair flying around her in a cascade of dark waves. She panted and wiped her arm against her forehead. "Shimon! I went into the vault to get what you said for the Pharaoh and -" She paused as all of our eyes turned on her and composed herself awkwardly. She took a deep breath and then slowly let it out in a high pitched whistle, lifting up her hands and slowly lowering them as she did so. From beside me Shimon nodded to her encouragingly. "I found Mahad! The casket's in the royal vault!"

"There's a 'royal vault' and no one thought to check that first?" Seto Kaiba barked.

Mana jumped and shrank back a little from the Other Seto, only belatedly realizing he was there at all as she had charged passed him.

Shimon nodded at the news, frowning, but not in surprise. A hand moved to scratch at his beard contemplatively as he spoke. "The royal vault can only be accessed by the Pharaoh himself, or those carrying a royal edict."

"Making it the perfect place to hide." Seto Kaiba scowled before sneering and adding. "Let me guess, it's also dark, narrow and underground with only one way in and out?" His tone was sardonic, but his assumption was correct.

"Sections of it are, yes." Shimon confirmed.

"We should act quickly." I announced and Shimon copied me as I found my feet and stood from the table. Now that I knew where Mahad was I could not sit by and be idle. "Mana, find the Pharaoh and-"

"-Don't bother." Seto Kaiba interrupted blandly, handing the remains of the plate he had been picking at off to a startled servant . "I'll deal with this myself." He declared and swept out of the room with a scoff.

* * *

**AN: **Most of act 2 of this story so far has written itself but I've finally run into a mild case of writer's block so there might be a bit of a delay between this chapter and the next. Please review if you get a chance, the feedback always helps!


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